Everyone loves to know that they have good security and are safe where they are living. But, when living in apartments, sometimes the security isn’t that great and you feel vulnerable. The Ring Video Doorbell is the thing for you though!
How do I install a Ring Video Doorbell in my apartment? You will need to find a sturdy place to put in on your doorframe, door, or the wall. You then screw the device into the surface so that it is secure. This will still leave access to get to the batteries so that you can replace the power source when necessary. It is non-invasive and does not create damage to fix when you move out.
Being able to have a minimally invasive instalment for this security system is definitely a positive because you won’t run into as many problems with your landlord. Besides easy instalment, there are tons of great features with this device that you can read about below.
What Type of Doorbell is Best for Renters?
The best type of doorbell for renters is going to be a wireless one. The wireless ones are best because they require very minimal structure drilling for installment which will cause the least amount of damage for the property. This minimal damage is often easily reversed or replaced by the landlords when you move out as well.
These wireless doorbells are powered by batteries or battery packs that you insert in the back. Some will simply need normal batteries such as AA or AAA batteries that you usually already have for other devices in your home.
The best type of doorbell for renters is going to be a wireless one, like the Ring Video Doorbell.
Once the batteries die in your doorbell, you would simply replace the old ones with new ones like you would with a T.V. remote.
Other wireless doorbells come with rechargeable battery packs that you insert like you would normal batteries into the back of the doorbell. When this battery pack runs out of juice, you would simply recharge it with a USB cord that is also provided with the doorbell itself then replace the battery pack in the back of the device.
These devices are an awesome, super convenient security feature for apartment dwellers and they can make a world of difference in security for tenants.
I would highly recommend getting them no matter where you are living, good or bad neighborhood because it will increase your safety rates and you can be more prepared and better warned of a bad situation happening with some of the great features included with these devices.
Recommended Smart Doorbells with Wireless-Powered Capabilities :
- Ring Video Doorbell ($99.99)
- Ring Video Doorbell 2 ($169.99)
- Ring Wi-Fi Enabled Video Doorbell ($99.99)
- Ring Video Doorbell Pro ($199.99)
I would most recommend getting the Ring Video Doorbell 2 if you are installing it on your doorframe, wall, or door with the small screws.
However, if you have a peephole in your door, I would recommend the Ring Video Doorbell Pro because it is their newest model with all of the best technology features and it has a zero-damage installment.
I most recommend the Video Doorbell 2 and the Video Doorbell Pro because they are the highest quality with the most advanced technology features that are the most convenient to use, along with the least damaging installment, but the Wi-Fi Enabled Video Doorbell and the original Video Doorbell have great wireless power features and great security features as well.
These devices can be found online at the Ring website, Best Buy, Amazon, Lowes, Home Depot, Costco, and so many more places. They are not too hard to come by and are all decently priced, especially for the features they come with.
It’s a steal! Go look for yours today!
Ring Doorbell Chime (Attachment)
You can buy this attachment to go with your wireless doorbell.
However, not everyone always has their phone with them or, in my personal case, doesn’t have their ringer on at which point they won’t see or hear the notifications.
Lucky for those of us that fall into those categories, or even those that like having the extra features, this company has thought of this predicament. This attachment package is a device that will act as your doorbell chime or “ding dong” that you can hear throughout your house or apartment.
This device plugs into a wall outlet in your home and hooks up through the wi-fi just like the doorbell does. When your doorbell goes off, this device chimes as well which helps to send the alert through the entire house.
This eliminates the struggle of not being able to hear doorbell notifications!
Another cool feature with this device is that you can from your phone. This device connects to your phone and you run all of the connections through there with both the doorbell and extension.
You customize the doorbell chime and connect the two devices and so much more from the click of a button on your phone!
How to Install a Wireless Doorbell
This smart doorbell has a super easy and simple set-up, especially if you are using it in the battery powered mode. Again, I would highly recommend that you get a battery powered one for your rental because it has the least damaging installation process.
By trying to install a wired doorbell, you will be spending loads and loads of unnecessary money on the installation process because they will have to set up a wiring system and then connect the device to this and then place it in the wall correctly.
Then you will have to pay all of that and more again when you move out and need to pay for the repairs. Altogether, it is just smarter and easier to go battery powered in this one.
To install the device so it is set up for the battery-powered usage, you won’t need to do much. You will simply need to find a sturdy base on your front door, door frame, or the wall next to your door.
Once you find a sturdy base that you can put screws in, you will screw the device into the place of choice and then you should be good!
If you have a peephole in your door, you could get the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and have a no damage installation! This device simply replaces the old peephole in your door, so there is no screws or damage at all!
What Should I Know About My Ring Video Doorbell?
The Ring Video Doorbell is a great security feature, but there are some things that are best to be aware of before you purchase and install this device on your door or door frame at your rental.
Before purchasing and installing this doorbell, you should first check for permission from your landlord or the management of your rental complex to make sure that they are okay with you installing this device.
You should make sure they know that it is a very minimal damage installment and easily fixable when you move out. Walk them through the installation process so that they understand exactly how much damage might be done to the property.
You should also ask about privacy regulation with security devices because this smart doorbell has a camera and will capture a lot of human traffic and possibly even see into the apartment adjacent to yours occasionally.
Your landlord will be able to tell you if it is allowed or appropriate for you to use this device for security measures without getting in trouble for invasion of privacy.
After checking with your landlord or building management to ensure that the use and installation of this device is allowed, you should also check with your neighbors to make sure they are okay with the use of your safety device.
Again, this is simply because it is a camera and you do not want to invade the privacy of others’ lives against their will or without their permission.
This device has some awesome features that are super convenient, especially for renters or apartment dwellers. However, with every device, there are features, both good and bad, that will need to have an awareness of to know if this is the best fit and even to have a better understanding of how the device works once you get it.
This device’s battery life can vary as well depending on some circumstances. If you get a lot of traffic in front of your door and in the view of the motion sensor, your camera will be taping a lot of footage.
The Ring Video Doorbell device has some awesome features that are super convenient, especially for renters and apartment dwellers.
This excessive amount of footage capture will use up a lot of battery which will mean you have to replace the power source often.
Because of this rapid battery usage, you will need to replace or recharge the batteries often. It is estimated that, if you have a lot of traffic in front of your door, you will have to replace or recharge the batteries roughly every month in your Ring Video Doorbell.
If you are using the rechargeable battery feature, you will need to remember to completely replace the battery pack occasionally as well to ensure that your battery pack is working at its best. As these battery packs are used and recharged they will start to wear down and not work as well with time.
It is recommended to replace these battery packs after anywhere from 6 months to a year of usage depending on how much it is used and needed to be recharged.
This device is run and operated through your smartphone. It is where the video feed is stored, how you get alerts of things that set off the motion sensor, and even how you can be alerted that someone is at the door.
Another cool feature that this doorbell has is it can connect to your Amazon Alexa so that you can use it through there as well! Alexa is becoming super popular within homes and is a great addition to this awesome setup.
The device comes with up to 60 days worth of cloud storage where you can keep security videos etc. I would highly suggest going through these videos every week or two and deleting whatever is useless data in order to keep a clean storage space and to keep from this task becoming an all-day project.
The features and usage of this device can be transferred over to whoever the next tenant will be in your apartment or rental as well. It is a super easy process that takes less than a minute!
You simply hold the reset button on the device for 15 seconds and then that will completely reboot the system and make it ready for the new tenant to connect it to their own devices.
Tips for Owning the Ring Video Doorbell
One thing I would definitely suggest is having a spare battery pack for your device on hand. When the battery runs out in your doorbell, you have to take it out and charge it. During this charging time frame, your doorbell is out of commission and won’t work at all due to the lack of an energy source.
My advice to remedy this security problem is to buy a spare battery pack that you can keep charged and when one battery runs out, you replace it with the full one and charge the other.
Then when that battery runs out, you rotate them out again! Not only will this tip help you to stay safe at all times, but it will also help to keep you from having to buy replacement batteries as soon because you will be rotating between two instead of completely wearing one out.
Another tip I would suggest that I mentioned earlier already is to frequently go through the security video footage. I would suggest going through the footage weekly or every other week because then the footage won’t build up in your storage and you won’t have months of footage to go through when you happen to get around to actually doing that or when your cloud storage is full.
By frequently sifting through all of your footage and deleting the unnecessary, you will keep yourself from having to do a week-long project of viewing security footage.
Frequently go through the security footage on
your Ring device.
Something else to keep in mind is to check the date and time setting on the doorbell when you install it or after resetting it. You should only have to do this a couple of times ever, but it is important to check and I will explain to you why.
When your camera on your doorbell is taping for security reasons, it will take into account the date and times when videoing. If your camera catches an incident it will have that date and time on the footage.
Now, let’s say an incident does happen at 10:15 pm on February 20th and your camera catches it. But you didn’t make sure your camera’s date and time were accurate when installing it and it has the footage logged as happening at 6:56 am on July 1st.
This evidence is now invalid because the data is inaccurate. If the police do still accept the evidence, it will create a ton of more work because the information seems inaccurate.
It doesn’t take too much effort to check and correct the date and time on your Ring Video Doorbell. Just go into the settings to check and adjust accordingly. This will save you a world of troubles later, especially if your camera catches an incident.
Why Should I Get the Ring Video Doorbell?
One of the biggest reasons I would suggest getting one of the Ring Video Doorbells, especially if you don’t live in the nicest area, is for security purposes! Even if you are in a safer area to live, having these extra security measures never hurts.
Apartments are not always the safest places to live no matter where you are at. Having this Ring Video Doorbell will help to provide just the security measures you need to be safe.
The video camera will catch and even warn you of any security problems so that you are aware when something is happening and even have evidence to bring to the authorities to help solve the issue.
Oftentimes, when people have video doorbells like this, if the perp sees it he won’t do anything. He won’t want to get caught on camera.
And if the perp doesn’t notice the camera, it will catch them in the act and you have evidence with probably a shot of their face that you can take to authorities to catch the person and make you and your neighbors safer.
This camera won’t just keep you safer, but it will have similar security benefits for your neighbors across the hall as well because your camera will catch their doorway as well.
Having this Ring Video Doorbell will help to provide just the security measures you need to be safe in
your apartment.
This video technology makes everything safer and also makes it easier to catch criminals as well because of the video footage that is caught. Something that enhances the video technology that helps to make this device even better security for you is the motion detection feature.
Not only will this device catch video footage, but when someone walks by your door or comes up to it, your camera will pick up on the motion and will notify you. This will give you a warning so you can check the live feed of the camera and know whether the person outside your door looks safe or not.
Another great feature that I love is that it actually has the doorbell chime like any house would have. The person outside the door presses the doorbell button and you get that chime and are notified about the company at your door.
This will help relieve your guests, of all sorts, from having to pound on your door to let you know they are there. You won’t have to try and listen extra hard for knocking either because you will be able to hear that distinct doorbell chime.
I know I covered this a bit already, but it is a very beneficial feature of this device that I feel like can do so much good. Aside from being able to pick up footage of suspicious characters outside your door, this video feature will be able to pick up on any crime outside your door.
This can be anything from package theft, burglary of yours or your neighbor’s home, assaults done outside your door, and any other awful crime that can be done.
All of these awful crimes will be caught on camera if they are right outside your door and will be able to be reported with solid video evidence of the entire thing.
Having and utilizing this safety feature will help to clean up the streets as well and keep at least your apartment complex safer because you will have evidence to put away the bad people performing these awful crimes. You will be able to keep you and your neighbors safe from future possible crimes.
On a less serious note, this device is also very convenient to use. The entire this connects to your phone and you can make adjustments, check footage, and anything else you could do with this doorbell from the click of a button on your phone. This convenience factor makes it so much easier to use and personalize.
Along with linking to your smartphone, this smart doorbell can also link with your Alexa system and you can control some of these device’s features through Alexa as well.
It adds a whole new level to the convenience factor of this device. Who doesn’t
This device is the ultimate security and convenience feature that your apartment needs, plus it has a super easy installment that won’t take longer than 10 minutes to do.
This amazing device, on top of all of these awesome features, only costs about $100 to $200 and only $30 to $100 for the security package with it, depending on the security package you get.
These devices are not very expensive and can make a world of difference in your safety. It’s a no brainer to get, especially if you are living in an apartment.
Related Questions:
Can I install a Ring Video Doorbell on the door? You can install a ring doorbell at an apartment! You probably can’t get one that you drill into the wall because you are simply renting the place and can’t damage the walls, but this company just came out with a video doorbell that fits right over the peephole in your door! No damage, no problems with the landlord, and great security!
Does the Ring Video Doorbell work while charging? Your Ring Video Doorbell will need a battery pack in the device in order to work so unless you have a spare battery pack to use while the other is charging, your device will not work until you put your recharged battery pack into the device again.
