Ring Indoor Cam 2nd Gen Review

Ring Indoor Cam 2nd Gen Review – Ring’s most affordable camera offers Alexa and Google Assistant integration with added people detection and up to 180 days of video storage.

Aliza Wigderman, Senior Editor, Industry Analyst and Gabe Turner, Editor-in-Chief Last updated: September 18, 2023

Ring Indoor Cam 2nd Gen Review

Ring’s most affordable camera is the Ring Indoor Cam, which can be purchased for just $59.99 with no required monthly fee. We’ve loved using the Ring – Always Home app to check in on our living room from anywhere in the world with internet!

Keep An Eye Inside: The Ring Indoor Camera (gen 2)

Ring is a well-established home camera brand that offers a wide range of quality home products, including some more expensive and flashy cameras like the Ring Stick Up Cam. The no-frills indoor camera is one of Ring’s most popular models, not because it’s loaded with special features or power, but because it’s easy to use and gets the job done at a hard-to-beat price of $60 plus shipping.

I’m not new to Ring cameras. I’ve been reporting on the Ring indoor camera since it went on sale in 2019. This time, I installed and tested the brand new Gen 2 Ring indoor camera, putting it through the proverbial construction site for several weeks at home.

It was also a good time. The new Ring Cam comes with several video and audio enhancements that I’ve been waiting for a long time. Color night vision and improved sound were important highlights. In any case, this is exactly what the guys from Ring claimed. It’s time to find out if this experience lived up to the hype.

It seems out of character for Ring, a leading camera brand, to offer an indoor camera as basic as the Ring Indoor Cam. However, even the other top camera brands we’ve tested (listed below) offer stripped-down indoor cameras. Lorex has dozens of plug-in indoor cameras, Arlo has the Essential Indoor, and Blink has the Blink Mini, for example. So yes, a simple indoor camera may be good enough for the home.

The New Ring Indoor Cam Is The First With A Physical Privacy Shutter

To be honest, when the UPS guy dropped off my Gen 2 Ring Indoor Camera, it reminded me a lot of the Ring Stick Up Camera: a white cylinder attached to a base. FYI, if this is your first ring, the indoor ring is tiny (2 inches wide and just under 4 inches tall), which is a plus in my opinion. This camera does not take up much space on a shelf or counter and is invisible.

Like the Stick Up Cam, the Ring Indoor Cam is a plug-in model, which means I don’t have to worry about any complicated installations or expensive and frequent battery replacements. On the other hand, I had another wire in my living room that needed checking. Unlike the first generation Ring Cam, the new model comes with a privacy cover. You turn the cover to the side to block the camera and microphone. Pretty neat, but to be honest, it’s not a feature I would get much enjoyment out of.

In practical terms, the 2nd generation Ring Cam boasts color night vision and improved overall video clarity. In my experience, color night vision can make a big difference in low-light situations when you’re struggling to get a clear view of the people in your area, so I was really looking forward to seeing if the new Ring Indoor actually made it here.

Other than that, the Ring Indoor Cam’s design is fairly simple, without any fancy extras like a spotlight or siren, which may explain its lower price.

New Ring Indoor Cam 2nd Generation Puts Privacy First

Pro Tip: How does Ring Night Vision compare to the competition? Here are our favorite night vision cameras of 2023.

The best cameras don’t have to do everything under the sun, but to earn high marks here, they have to cover the basics and do them right. Personally, I’ve tested dozens of quality home cameras, so I have pretty high standards. Given my past experience with Ring cameras, my expectations for the new Ring Indoor Cam were especially high. So how did the 2nd generation Ring Cam perform? Here’s a summary of my results.

The Ring is a handy indoor camera that shoots good but not amazing 1080 HD video. For example, it doesn’t have the 4K processing power of the more expensive (and stylish) Google Nest Cam or the monster Lorex 4K Spotlight. I was happy to see that the slightly higher frame rate of the 2nd Gen Ring Cam (24fps) did a little to alleviate the performance issues that many users reported with the lag-prone 1st Gen Ring Cam at 20fps. give me a sec.

On the other hand, I wasn’t over the moon with the Ring in sight. At a viewing angle of 115 degrees (horizontal), the field of view was a bit narrow and fishy. Despite this, I still give the Ring Indoor Cam full marks because the overall video quality is pretty good and it packs into a $60 lens.

Ring Indoor Camera (2nd Gen) By Amazon

If you’re familiar with the old Ring Indoor, you already know that Ring’s 1080p video camera doesn’t capture IMAX-quality interiors at night. But I think most Ring users will appreciate Gen 2 Ring’s new color night vision mode. While the picture quality isn’t much better than the 1st generation Ring’s black-and-white video, the images are brighter and the Ring performs surprisingly well in the dark.

Audio is one area where the new ring gets it absolutely right. The sound quality of the second generation is much better than its predecessor. If you’ve never tested the Gen 1 Ring Indoor, the sound generally sounds like the teachers in a Charlie Brown holiday special.

Of course, this is not your veranda, where good sound is simply necessary. However, you never know how you’ll end up using your camera’s microphone—whether to say hello to the pet from work or to help the kids with homework—so audio is a factor to consider in everyday life.

Ring’s video storage plans haven’t changed much since I tested my first Ring indoor camera in 2019. Without a paid plan, I had live video streaming, motion notifications, and two-way audio, but that’s about it. This meant no data storage—even for a few hours. In comparison, Google gives you 3 hours of recording for free with the Nest Cam.

Ring Indoor Camera (2nd Gen)

To be clear, I’m not saying you need a lot of storage space. Many people don’t do this. But if you want to review Ring footage, even after an hour, it will cost you money.

Unfortunately, my new ring also made it difficult to detect people, which meant that my internal camera detected movement of the cover but didn’t send me a specific alert when it detected a person in my home. For all the bells and whistles—and Ring offers plenty of them, including cellular backup—you’ll need the Ring Protect plan.

On the other hand, Ring Protect plans start low at $3.99 per month per camera with up to 180 days of video storage. Compare that to Wyze’s plans, which start at $3.33 and only give you 14 days of storage. To read about my experience testing the latest version of the Wyze Cam v3, another budget workhorse camera, read my full WyzeCam review.

FYI: Don’t confuse Ring video storage plans with the monitoring plans that come with quality home systems. It’s not the same thing. Storage plans are similar to Google Drive or Dropbox. You temporarily leave your video recording there in case you need it. Home systems with professional monitoring will connect you with emergency response teams in the event of an incident on your property.

Amazon.com: All New Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), White With 10 Ft. Usb A To Micro Usb Power Cable

You can get a Ring indoor camera for much less than $100. Check current prices on Amazon.

Amazon owns Ring, so naturally the Ring Indoor Cam works with Alexa. For Alexa users, this means you can easily set routines using voice commands, which is very convenient. Alexa will also notify you when your camera detects motion. If you have Amazon Echo Show, it will even show you live video.

Personally, we are the Google family. If you do too, don’t worry. Ring also works with Google Assistant through the Google Home app.

For Apple families, I’m sorry to report that after nearly four years of testing Ring cameras, I still haven’t found a way to get Ring to work with HomeKit natively. For this you will need a bridge. At least for now. As Matter-enabled smart devices (and firmware fixes) hit the market in the next few years, my spidey sense tells me that bridgeless Ring-Apple connections will be happening.

Ring Indoor Cam Review

Did you know? Matter (capital M) is a new open source language that all our devices will soon use to communicate with each other and with our smart home platforms. The name of the game is “interaction.” In other words, in the future, you’ll be able to use your Samsung phone to control your Ring camera while it’s connected to Apple HomeKit.

Some high-end indoor cameras with artificial intelligence can tell you exactly when your camera detects a person, as opposed to less important moving objects like cars, pets or leaves falling from a tree. Canary Pro is one of the best I’ve reviewed. Arlo Pro 3 is another one. Set up any of these cameras correctly and you’ll be