There is a good chance you’ve at least heard of or have encountered a Ring home security product. We’d hedge that it’s one of the brand's doorbells, but they’re a known quantity in the home security space.
Ring offers a plethora of doorbells--both wired and wireless--along with indoor or outdoor cameras, various sensors, and a full DIY alarm system. And now they’re moving further outside the home with Ring Car Cam.
Up for preorder now at a discounted price of $199.99 and originally teased back in 2020, this car dashcam features two cameras. One facing forward to view outside the car and one inward to monitor the inside of the vehicle.
Most critically though, it works with almost any car thanks to it getting power from an OBD-II port. Ring is going for mass appeal here, so let’s unpack this car security and monitoring solution.
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Ring Car Cam: What you Need to Know
In terms of the device itself, the Car Cam slides directly into the front dash of your car or truck. It’s also meant for a seamless self install. You’ll place the dashcam in the front, wire what Ring promises to be a lengthy cable, and then plug it into the vehicle's OBD-II port. From there, like a Ring Doorbell, you’ll complete the set up in the app for Android or iOS.
The Car Cam itself uses a two-camera system, which differentiates itself from other after-market dash cam solutions. This allows the device to monitor, for instance, outside the car like a fender bender while parked or maybe an attempted break-in over night, but it can also handle instances inside the car. This way, if your vehicle is broken into you can see it in the recorded video or even pull up a live feed.
As you might suspect, built into the Car Cam are sensors which help it detect these events. Be it a car crash, a scratch, or a break-in it uses these to detect and start recording. It will also, when connected, send an alert to the Ring app to let you know something is occurring. Along with video, the Car Cam is also equipped with microphones and speakers to let you hear what is going on. You can even engage in a conversation if you see fit.
Ring also designed a feature that can be very useful for a traffic stop or for when you want to have something be recorded. You can say “Alexa, Record” to have the Car Cam begin recording from both lenses. This way you can have a record of an interaction with police while being pulled over or maybe even a road rage incident.
All of the video can be viewed from the Ring app for Android or iOS. And yes, that’s the same place you’d go to interact with a Video Doorbell or a Spotlight Cam. The Car Cam shows up like a device where you can adjust the settings, pull up a live look, or view older recorded events. When you’re streaming a video or viewing it from the Ring App, the Car Cam does support end-to-end encryption, which you can turn on in the Ring app. We’d highly recommend engaging this feature as well.
The Car Cam itself does have onboard storage, but you’ll get the most out of it when it’s connected to the internet. This way it can backup footage over Wi-Fi, or with a Ring Protect Go plan--which cost $6 a month or $60 for the year--you get an LTE cellular connection. This way you can receive those alerts of triggered events or access the live view from anywhere. This also allows you to save those moments to the cloud versus just staying on the device itself. With the Protect Go plan, videos can be stored for up to 180-days--you can save these to another device--and events will be uploaded immediately to the cloud.
Since there is a camera on the Car Cam that does face the occupants of the vehicle, there is a privacy shutter. It’s similar to that of an Echo Show, but when you close it the view is blocked and it disengages the video and audio recording. An LED built-in to the car cam will also illuminate to let you know when the front camera is recording as well.
And that about wraps up everything to know about the Ring Car Cam. It’s a one-size fits all solution that aims to work with a breadth of vehicles and it checks off many of the boxes for a car security camera. It’s also a logical step for Ring to take and one that we’re excited to test out.
How to Preorder the Ring Car Cam
Ring’s Car Cam is up for preorder now at Amazon and is available at discounted price of $199.99. Once the Car Cam ships in February 2023, the price will rise to the MSRP of $249.99.
You can also pair the Car Cam with the Protect Go subscription at $6 per month or $60 for the year.
Prices are accurate and items in stock at time of publishing.
