Amazon-owned Ring just unveiled a new version of its Ring Alarm home security system with a killer feature: a built-in Eero 6 mesh Wi-Fi router.
You can pre-order a Ring Alarm Pro base station with integrated Eero router today for $250. An eight-piece configuration, which includes the base station plus four contact sensors, a motion sensor, a Z-Wave range extender, and a keypad, will sell for $300, while a 14-piece kit with the base station, eight contact sensors, two motion sensors, Z-Wave range extender, and two keypads will fetch $380.
The router built into the Ring Alarm Pro is based on Amazon’s own Eero 6 router. As such, it is a dual-band (2.4-/5GHz) Wi-Fi 6 router capable of up to 900Mbps throughput. To extend the system’s Wi-Fi range, you can get Eero 6 Extenders, each of which will add 1,500 square feet of Wi-Fi coverage for $89.
As with previous iterations of the Ring Alarm system, the Ring Pro also has both Z-Wave and Zigbee radios onboard; however, the Zigbee radio will not be active right out of the box. As with previous Ring Alarm systems, we’ve been told Zigbee might be turned on at a future date. While the Eero 6 router (and the Eero 6 Pro) also have Zigbee radios onboard, Ring tells us the Ring Alarm Pro will have just the one inactive Zigbee radio.
A new accessory—Ring Power Packs—can keep the Ring Alarm Pro operating for a limited time during a power outage. Up to four of these $130 battery backups can be stacked to keep your alarm system operating during an extended blackout.
Ring Edge—another novel new feature unique to the new Ring Alarm Pro—provides local video storage and processing via an onboard microSD card slot. The 64GB microSD card included with Ring Alarm Pro will store roughly 47 hours of video clips. Nice, but Ring Edge requires a Ring Protect subscription, which starts at $3 a month for Ring Protect Basic.
A feature being carried over from earlier versions of Ring Alarm: An optional LTE connection that will keep the system connected to the internet in the event your regular broadband service fails, such as might happen if a burglar tries to disable your alarm system by cutting the telephone, cable, or fiber-optic cable coming into your home. Thanks to the integrated Eero router, that LTE backup feature can now also keep other network devices connected to the internet, not just the Ring Alarm.
AmazonThese stackable Ring Power Packs (three are pictured beneath the main base station) will keep the Ring Alarm Pro running if the electricity goes out.
On the topic of subscriptions: If you want professional monitoring, LTE backup, and some other features, you’ll need to pony up for a new service plan—one that costs twice as much as the old one. You’ll find more details on changes to the Ring Protect service plans at the preceding link.
We’ll have a full review of the Ring Alarm Pro once we’ve spent some time with a test unit.