Ring Floodlight Cam Tested

Published Apr 20, 2017 14:34 PM

Ring has released their latest entry, the Floodlight Cam, calling it the "Evolution of Outdoor Security", touting motion activated floodlights, built in siren, two way audio, and more, made to replace residential fixtures.

We bought and tested the Floodlight Cam against the Nest Outdoor camera to see how it performed in a typical residential setting, how easy it was to install and use, and how it compared to competitor Nest in image quality.

This is our 3rd Ring test, also including:

Summary

Based on our tests, the Ring Floodlight Camera is an interesting concept which falls short in several areas:

  • Poor image quality: Compared to the Nest Cam Outdoor, the Ring Floodlight cam produced fewer details of the subject and test chart in our tests, night and (especially) day, with noticeable artifacts and overexposure.
  • Unreliable app: During testing, the Ring app frequently failed to load live video, floodlight on/off controls regularly failed, and motion detection sensitivity settings failed to save.
  • Harsh white light: The camera's white light LED floodlights produced harsher light than typical floods and are not dimmable, with bright central hotspots. This resulted in lights needing to be aimed up to illuminate further, shining on neighbors' houses across the street in our test scene.

On the plus side, installation was relatively easy, with two key caveats. Unlike other outdoor cameras, which generally require penetrating the home's exterior, the Ring Floodlight is intended to replace an existing light fixture, which involves connecting three wirenuts. However, this assumes two key factors:

  1. An existing light must be available in an appropriate location. Outdoor lighting is common, but may not be ideal as a camera location (mounted on a corner, low to the ground, etc.).
  2. Users must be comfortable with household voltage wiring. Hiring an electrician is likely another ~$100 charge on top of the Floodlight's already relatively high price.

Pricing

The Ring Floodlight Cam can be purchased directly from Ring.com for ~$250. This is higher than the Kuna outdoor light / camera which costs ~$200 online.

The Floodlight Cam records only to the cloud, not locally. Plans are available for $3/month or $30/year per camera or $10/month or $100/year for unlimited cameras, with video stored for six months. This pricing is less expensive than Nest, which starts at $10/camera or $100/year for 10 day storage. With the purchase of the Ring Floodlight Cam you receive a 30 day subscription for cloud storage.

Lifetime Warranty

Like other Ring products, the floodlight comes with a lifetime warranty against damage and theft. This applies only to new sales from authorized channels (direct, Amazon, etc.)

Physical Overview

In the video below we provide a physical overview of the Ring Flood Light Camera.


Installation

In our test we replaced an existing motion activated floodlight in ~20 minutes. Installation was straight forward, similar to typical floodlights: replace the junction box bracket, connect the power and ground wires, then mount it using two screws. After installation the device is set up using the Ring app, similar to other Ring devices.

Image Quality

The Ring Floodlight provides a wide, 140°, field of view, resulting in lower PPF at similar distances compared to the Nest Outdoor Cam (130° FOV). The FoV comparison image below shows the wider, less detailed field of view from the Ring Floodlight.

The gif below shows the 5', 10' and 30' distance positions that we tested at. This was created using Camera Calculator.

In our testing, in all scenes, the Floodlight camera's images look heavily compressed, with noticeable blocking and artifacts. Combined with its lower PPF, details are greatly reduced compared to Nest, even at only 5' distance.

Note that Ring recommends at least 1 Mb/s upload speed and -55 dB RSSI. In testing our speed and wireless, we were well above this speed and wireless quality, so these compression issues were not due to bandwidth/speed constraints. 

As a control, we shot the Ring Floodlight cam indoors in a more evenly lit scene. Artifacts and blocking were still present, though details were moderately improved. As in the original test scene, internet speed and wireless signal were both well above Ring's recommended levels.

As the subject moves away from the camera the differences in image quality between the cameras are not as drastic, but are still noticeable, with identifying details still available in the Nest Cam.

At ~30' from the cameras neither is useful for more than just detection, without any identifiable details.

Low Light Image Quality

Next, we tested low light image quality with Ring's floodlight on vs. the Nest Cam. The floodlight was very bright and focused, likely startling to intruders when triggering. However, the floodlights have a strong center hotspots which may cause overexposure, and require the lights to be aimed up further than normally necessary, which may be a nuisance to neighbors.  

At 5' distance, the Ring produces less detail than the Nest Cam, with fewer facial details and the test chart overexposed beyond line 2-3.

At 10', facial details are not visible in either camera, with the Ring continuing to overexpose the test chart. 

 

Finally, at 30', neither camera produces usable video, though detection is possible with some difficulty.  

Note that the Ring Floodlight includes IR illuminators in addition to its white floodlights. However, low light imaging was even weaker when using IR only, shown below. 

At 10', again details of the subject are weaker using IR, with facial/clothing details almost totally indiscernable.

Finally, at 30', details are similar, with IR image quality slightly brighter, but effectively similar to the floodlights. 

 

App Controls 

The Ring app includes controls for manual light on/off, scheduling, and motion zone triggering/sensitivity, shown below. However, no dimming controls are included, so the light may not be adjust to best illuminate its installed location aside from aiming lights up/down/left/right.

Note that there are no controls for IR illumination. It is simply on in low light with no control.

Ring says they have plans to add controls for both of these in the future. 

Frequent App Errors

We experienced frequent errors in app control during our tests, with video not connecting (below), lights not turning on/off when manually switched, and sensitivity settings seemingly changing nothing. Ring says errors should be addressed in upcoming firmware/app releases.

Ring Setup

The setup of the Ring Floodlight Cam is the same process as the other Ring cameras.  After the device is powered on open the ring app and follow the on screen instructions.  Below we show setup process within the Ring app.  Setting up the camera took ~5 minutes.  Below is an gif of the setup process.

Test Parameters

The most up to date firmware was used at the time of testing:

  • Ring Floodlight Cam: 1.6.53
  • Nest Outdoor: 214-610038
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