At $50, it’s the most expensive of Ring’s new battery-powered smart lighting lineup, which includes spotlights, motion sensors, and pathlights, but it doesn’t deliver much in the way of unique functionality. Rather, it feels like an Amazon Basics knockoff of the Floodlight Cam, albeit a quality one for the price. Ring’s hallmark craftsmanship and set-it-and-forget-it simplicity are on full display, but the Floodlight Battery just doesn’t have the same elegance and sophistication as its camera-enabled products. Like the rest of Ring’s products, the Floodlight Battery is incredibly easy to install and set up.
If you’re setting it up as a dumb light, you won’t need to do anything except pop in the batteries and attach the bracket to a sturdy wall or beam with a drill and the included screws. It only requires three screws to stay in place, but you’ll want to make sure it’s secured well, since the Floodlight Battery gets pretty heavy once you add four D cells to it. The last thing smart home enthusiasts need is another standalone hub, but it’s small, has a long range, and uses a power cable (rather than an all-one-one plug design like the Chime), so it’s easy to hide. With the doorbell, for example, there are several steps of sensitivity that can be selected for how often you want to be bothered by alerts, but on the Floodlight Battery, there are only three: Low, Medium, and High.
So you’ll probably click the wrong menu several times before you get your lights just right—though thankfully you won’t need to visit them much after the original setup. It drives home the point that the Floodlight Battery is more of an accessory than a standalone device, as is the case with all of Ring’s smart lights. Ring estimates that they will power the Floodlight Battery for a year, but obviously that depends on how often your lights illuminate. During one particularly busy night, the battery indicator in the Ring app inexplicably dropped to 50 percent, though it returned to full the next morning.
In an age where we’re moving away from disposable cells in favor of rechargeable ones, the waste and expense required to power the Floodlight Battery is surprisingly short-sighted. Or if you don’t need the convenience of battery power, consider the Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight, Wired, which produces 2,000 lumens, but costs $20 more (our review is in progress).
Ring Spotlight Battery review: The best Smart Lighting starting point
If you’re at all interested in exploring a Ring Smart Light setup at your home, the device to start with is the Spotlight Battery. It has the same plastic design as the Floodlight Battery, which feels much cheaper than Ring’s camera-based products. As an owner of the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Floodlight Cam, it’s a surprising downgrade and makes the Smart Lighting devices feel more like cheap imitations than extended members of the same family.
For one, you’re going to need four D-cell batteries to power it, which is the biggest drawback to the entire Smart Lighting system.
One the Bridge is plugged in, you’ll use the app to connect it to your Wi-Fi network and discover new lights. For one, it requires a bit of location scouting, since recording by the doorbell won’t really matter if there’s motion in the backyard. Even on the “Medium” setting, I got numerous alerts every day for things like shadows and wind, while switching it to “Low” barely registered anything. I’m still not totally sold on the the Ring Smart Lighting family, but if you want to get started, the Spotlight Battery is definitely the way to go. But while the lower price is intriguing and the Ring Bridge basically future-proofs your setup, the better long-term bet is the Spotlight Cam Battery.
Yes, it’s significantly more expensive ($199) and requires a monthly subscription to enable video recording, but the design, construction, features, and settings make it an all-around better value.
Wanzhow Ring selfie light Ring Lamp LED Rechargeable\Battery LED Selfie Ring Light Built-in Battery LED Ring Selfie Light for Enhancing Photo Light Tik-Tok for All Mobile Ring Flash
Designed with anti-slip and scratch-resistant sponge which can effectively prevent it from falling off and protect your phone from being scratched. Brightness Levels: Take selfies anywhere, dark night clubs, Parties, Camping etc.
Ring Floodlight, Battery review: Not enough light and not enough smarts
At $50, it’s the most expensive of Ring’s new battery-powered smart lighting lineup, which includes spotlights, motion sensors, and pathlights, but it doesn’t deliver much in the way of unique functionality. Rather, it feels like an Amazon Basics knockoff of the Floodlight Cam, albeit a quality one for the price.
Ring’s hallmark craftsmanship and set-it-and-forget-it simplicity are on full display, but the Floodlight Battery just doesn’t have the same elegance and sophistication as its camera-enabled products. Like the rest of Ring’s products, the Floodlight Battery is incredibly easy to install and set up. If you’re setting it up as a dumb light, you won’t need to do anything except pop in the batteries and attach the bracket to a sturdy wall or beam with a drill and the included screws. It only requires three screws to stay in place, but you’ll want to make sure it’s secured well, since the Floodlight Battery gets pretty heavy once you add four D cells to it.
The last thing smart home enthusiasts need is another standalone hub, but it’s small, has a long range, and uses a power cable (rather than an all-one-one plug design like the Chime), so it’s easy to hide. With the doorbell, for example, there are several steps of sensitivity that can be selected for how often you want to be bothered by alerts, but on the Floodlight Battery, there are only three: Low, Medium, and High. So you’ll probably click the wrong menu several times before you get your lights just right—though thankfully you won’t need to visit them much after the original setup. It drives home the point that the Floodlight Battery is more of an accessory than a standalone device, as is the case with all of Ring’s smart lights.
Ring estimates that they will power the Floodlight Battery for a year, but obviously that depends on how often your lights illuminate. During one particularly busy night, the battery indicator in the Ring app inexplicably dropped to 50 percent, though it returned to full the next morning.
In an age where we’re moving away from disposable cells in favor of rechargeable ones, the waste and expense required to power the Floodlight Battery is surprisingly short-sighted. Or if you don’t need the convenience of battery power, consider the Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight, Wired, which produces 2,000 lumens, but costs $20 more (our review is in progress).
Ring Spotlight Battery review: The best Smart Lighting starting point
If you’re at all interested in exploring a Ring Smart Light setup at your home, the device to start with is the Spotlight Battery. It has the same plastic design as the Floodlight Battery, which feels much cheaper than Ring’s camera-based products.
As an owner of the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Floodlight Cam, it’s a surprising downgrade and makes the Smart Lighting devices feel more like cheap imitations than extended members of the same family. For one, you’re going to need four D-cell batteries to power it, which is the biggest drawback to the entire Smart Lighting system.
One the Bridge is plugged in, you’ll use the app to connect it to your Wi-Fi network and discover new lights. For one, it requires a bit of location scouting, since recording by the doorbell won’t really matter if there’s motion in the backyard.
Even on the “Medium” setting, I got numerous alerts every day for things like shadows and wind, while switching it to “Low” barely registered anything. I’m still not totally sold on the the Ring Smart Lighting family, but if you want to get started, the Spotlight Battery is definitely the way to go.
But while the lower price is intriguing and the Ring Bridge basically future-proofs your setup, the better long-term bet is the Spotlight Cam Battery.
Yes, it’s significantly more expensive ($199) and requires a monthly subscription to enable video recording, but the design, construction, features, and settings make it an all-around better value.
Customer Reviews: Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight Battery Powered Black 5B21S8-BEN0
It is important that the Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight features and integrations meet your needs and expectations, as this improves the way you interact with our products. Please check out our Ring Community webpage “Feature Request Board” to share your valuable suggestions for smart home integration: https://community.ring.com/c/products/24.
Customer Reviews: Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight Battery Powered White 5B21S8-WEN0
It is important that the Ring Smart Lighting Floodlight features and integrations meet your needs and expectations, as this improves the way you interact with our products. Please check out our Ring Community webpage “Feature Request Board” to share your valuable suggestions for smart home integration: https://community.ring.com/c/products/24.
Ring Smart Lighting System Review
The Ring Smart Lighting System joins the company’s impressive roster of security devices and is designed to help keep your home safe and well lit. You Can Trust Our Reviews Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. It measures 2.3 by 2.4 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and has a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio to connect to your home network and Wi-Fi-enabled Ring cameras.
There are two signal strength LED indicators on the front and a mini USB power port on the bottom.
It uses a dimmable 400-lumen LED bulb with a 3,500K white color temperature and its motion sensor has a 120-degree field of view and a 30-foot range. A dimmable 80-lumen LED bulb with a 3,500K white color temperature sits inside a 4.1-by-4.1-inch fixture and is affixed to a pole that holds the four D-cell batteries needed to power the light.
The Pathlight has a motion sensor with a 140-degree field of view and a 15-foot range and has a dusk-to-dawn glow setting that will keep the light on at reduced brightness at night. It uses two LED bulbs to provide 2,000 lumens of 3,500K white light and its motion sensor has a 180-degree field of view and a 70-foot range. The small Steplight Battery is designed to light up stairways, walkways, and decks when it detects motion.
The Motion Sensor doesn’t illuminate anything but it provides an early trigger mechanism for smart lights and other Ring devices. The sensor is powered by three AAA batteries and comes with installation tools and screws, a user manual, and a security sticker. I plugged in the Bridge and waited a few seconds for the LED to blink blue, then selected my home Wi-Fi SSID when prompted.
I attached the Spotlight to the side of my house using the included mounting screws and repeated the setup process for the Pathlight and the motion sensor. Whether you want to illuminate driveways, stairways, or patio areas, there’s an option designed to light your way, and with most of these DIY devices, you don’t have to run any wires. You can also link these lights to Ring doorbells and cameras to trigger video recordings when motion is detected. It would be nice if Ring added support for IFTTT applets so you can do things like have lights turn on when a lock is opened or when an alarm is sounded, and rechargeable battery packs would be a welcome upgrade, but neither gripe prevents the Smart Lighting System from earning our Editors’ Choice.
Ring Smart Lighting System 4.0 Editors’ Choice See It $24.99 at Amazon MSRP $24.99 Pros Easy to install.
Highlight Important Areas With the Smart Floodlight Battery
Battery-powered Floodlight that shines light above driveways, sideyards and high-traffic areas when motion is detected.
Ring Spotlight Camera Battery review: Shining a light on your security arrangements
It’s a product that’s not only designed to capture and record suspicious activity, but to ward off would-be burglars by casting a light on them as they approach your property as well. And it’s possible to tweak the motion sensitivity, so it’s not set off all the time by swaying bushes or people walking past your house on the pavement. As with the rivals mentioned above, the Ring Spotlight is designed to run on battery power, which is a boon to DIY smart-homers. There’s no need to connect an extra hub to your router, as with the Arlo or D-Link systems – simply pair it with your wireless network and you’re off and running.
I was able to connect the camera to my wireless network and associate it with my existing Ring account in a matter of minutes. I mounted the camera on the outside of my garden office, some 30m and a brick wall away from my nearest mesh Wi-Fi node, and it was still able to maintain a strong enough signal.
This screws to the wall via a circular plate and holds the camera via a stubby arm, angled slightly down, with a ball joint at the end to allow for fine-tuning the position. In the end, I settled on the compromise of positioning it just above door height on my garden office but even here the camera would lose sight of anyone getting too close. This means, if you have a Spotlight Camera and a Ring doorbell, it’s going to cost you £50 per year, which is a lot for a two-camera system. The benchmark in this sector is the Nest IQ and Hello doorbell cameras, which capture far cleaner, clearer and sharper footage.
Traditional IP cameras allow users to draw boxes around areas to detect motion in, which would be a more effective system here. I was able to recognise the faces of people approaching it, day and night, and both email and app-based alerts were issued in a timely fashion.
It’s easy to install and setup, doesn’t require an extra hub to be attached to your router and is powered by an easy-to-charge lithium-ion battery. If you already have a Ring doorbell, it integrates nicely with the rest of the system, plus, the camera itself is very reasonably priced, especially as it also doubles as a security light and offers twin battery bays. The caveat is that Ring’s subscription prices will hit you in the pocket harder than rivals, and especially if you want to run more than one camera.
Be First to Comment