Ring Battery Doorbell Pro 4K Review

I tested the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro 4K, hands-on, in my own home. I’ve tried a lot of Ring doorbells over the last 10 years or so, so I know a little bit about the company and its devices.

Overall, the 4K is crystal clear and chock full of useful features. I don’t think I’ve seen a clearer image from any other doorbell camera.

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This is the second generation of the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro. It’s made a lot of upgrades over the old version and completely outdoes its sibling, the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus.

The Gen 2 Pro shoots in Retinal 4K with up to 10x Enhanced Zoom, and a 140º horizontal and 140º vertical field of view. All of this means you're getting wide-angle, head-to-toe coverage even when someone's standing at your door. Most doorbell cameras don’t come close to the video quality you get from the Ring Pro. 

When compared to the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus, there’s a huge upgrade in video quality. The videos are crystal clear, the colors are true to real life, and there’s very little distortion that’s found with most video doorbells.  There’s a little bit of that fishbowl view at the top of the images, but it isn’t too much of a problem. You can still see faces clearly.

Low-light performance gets a genuine upgrade here, too. The color Night Vision keeps the footage looking natural as long as there's any ambient light to work with — no more muddy, washed-out frames the second the sun dips below the fence line.

When it gets truly dark, the camera switches automatically to crisp black-and-white. It's a small thing, but anyone who's squinted at grainy night footage trying to figure out if that's a raccoon or a person will appreciate it.

Live view and two-way talk are included in all doorbell cameras at this point, but Ring bumped the audio quality with what they're calling Audio+. The idea is that you can actually hear and be heard clearly, not the tinny, clipped audio that makes half these conversations feel like you're talking through a drive-through speaker.

The motion detection got a hardware upgrade, too. Instead of relying purely on passive infrared sensors, the Pro uses radar-powered 3D Motion Detection. That translates to more precise alerts with fewer false positives. For me, this is a huge upgrade. There’s nothing more annoying than your security camera alerting you that there’s a bee at your door. While it’s cute, I need more accurate alerts.

And boy, does Ring deliver! I tested it in various areas with different scenarios, and the camera sent me amazingly detailed alerts. One said, “A person is moving in the room with a phone and a blue box.” Another said, “A dog is lying on the porch with another lying down.” I’m used to video doorbells calling my cat a package, so this detail and accuracy is incredibly refreshing.

Then there's the battery situation, which is genuinely one of the more practical improvements here. The Quick Release Ultra Battery Pack is Ring's best yet. The doorbell camera comes with a little key that pops open the front of the camera to give you access to the battery.

I like to wear my nails on the longer side, so the key situation is a lot easier to deal with than trying to pry off the doorbell cover and ripping off a nail in the process, like with the other Ring doorbell cameras.

I’ve always loved Ring’s app. It’s easy to use, even if you’ve never used a security camera app before. That’s saying a lot. Most security camera companies spend very little time worrying about how well their app works for the user. 

I also like how, with just a tap, you can have the doorbell tell people to go away or that you’re on your way, using its various auto-replies. My favorite is, “Please leave the property immediately. You are being monitored.” If that doesn’t give a sketchy person the boot politely, I don’t know what does.

Of course, you’ll need a subscription to access most features on the app. Without it, you can watch live footage, use the two-way talk, and listen to whoever is at your door. It won’t let you watch recordings, and it won’t have the smart notifications that I talked about before. It just tells you there’s motion at the door.

Ring makes a bunch of doorbell cameras, ranging from under $50 to over $500, so there's genuinely something for every budget — and the tradeoffs are pretty straightforward once you lay them out.
At the top of the lineup sits the Battery Doorbell Pro, which we've been covering here. It's the best overall pick at under $250, shoots in 4K, and runs on either battery or wired power. If you want the absolute most out of a Ring doorbell and don't mind spending a bit, this is the one.

The only model that beats it on features is the Wired Doorbell Elite, which runs close to $550 and uses Power over Ethernet instead of a traditional power source — meaning it pulls both power and internet connection through a single Ethernet cable. It also shoots 4K and supports dual-band Wi-Fi, but the price and the PoE installation requirement make it not a very practical buy for most. It's built for people who want maximum reliability and don't mind a more involved setup.

Step down in budget, and you hit the Ring Doorbell Plus at under $150. It drops from 4K to 2K video but still supports dual-band Wi-Fi and runs on battery or wired power. Solid mid-range option if the Pro feels like overkill.

The Ring Video Doorbell clocks in under $100 and is the best pick if you want a name-brand doorbell without spending much. It's 2K, works on battery or wired, but only supports 2.4GHz Wi-Fi — worth noting if your router setup is more modern.

All together, the Battery Doorbell Pro is a meaningful step up — not just in specs, but in the day-to-day experience of actually using a doorbell camera. It’s my favorite video doorbell that I’ve ever tested, and that number is probably in the triple digits by this point.