[saberworks]

> The Ring doorbell absolutely works as a mechanical doorbell if it's hard-wired into the doorbell system in the house...if there is one.

When the ring doorbell lost wifi, because we changed ISPs, it no longer functioned as a doorbell. When pressed, it would only make the chime outside at the button, it would not ring inside the house. Yes it's hard wired to a doorbell inside the house.

When connected to wifi and active, when the ring doorbell button is pressed, it will ring inside the house one single time. Then it starts recording, by default for 2 minutes. During the time it's recording, if the button is pressed again, the button press is completely ignored. So by default you can ring the doorbell 1 time every 2 minutes -- anything more often gets ignored. There is a huge bug report / thread about this on ring's site and they just say it's by design.

When the ring doorbell is completely disconnected from wifi and reset back to factory settings, it indeed functions as a regular doorbell. But it also has a spinning light that notifies everybody that it's not set up and is not recording.

My brother in law works for a home builder that installs Ring doorbell buttons by default on all their homes. He said he noticed that about half of them get replaced with a regular doorbell button or a different "smart/camera" doorbell within a few weeks of initial move-in.

[nunez]

Very interesting. I didn't know it was this nuanced. Thanks for breaking it down!