Ring Stick Up Cam Battery Review

The Ring Stick Up Battery offers users versatility in camera location and alert settings, high-quality video, audio, and an easy-to-use app. However, the camera is a bit spendy and requires a subscription to record video. Price considerations aside, this camera was a top performer.

Performance Comparison

Recorded Video Quality

The Ring Stick Up Battery earned outstanding marks for its recorded video quality. The unit's recorded video displays bright colors, sharp details, and crips borders across its 130º field of view. And, unlike some competitors, this camera maintains its recorded video quality at a distance, not just with subjects close to the lens.

The camera also boasts quality color night vision. In our tests, we could clearly make out facial features and even read lettering from a distance. However, the camera video displayed some graininess, but it was relatively minimal. It should be noted that we had some trouble loading into the live feed when it started in the dark. It's unclear if this is a bug across the entire Ring system or just with our camera.

Monitoring Performance

Unlike the recorded video metric, the monitoring analysis focuses on real-time viewing. This evaluation includes the sound quality both captured by the camera's microphone and produced by its speaker. The Ring Stick Up did remarkably well in this category. The main issue with the real-time video produced by home security cameras is that there is often a lag in the event and its representation on screen. Moreover, many cameras have audio/video syncing issues where the sound will come after the action that created it. This is not a problem with the Stick Up. There was almost no perceptible lag and the sound matched up with the video correctly.

As with the real-time video quality, the sound quality was also quite good. Unlike some other cameras we tested, the Ring Stick Up lacks background noise, though it did have a tiny bit of echo with speech. But all in all was very clear. The same holds for the sound coming out of the camera's speaker — when we spoke through the camera, our voice was loud and clear. Unfortunately, the same speaker issued a very weak alarm which we recorded at 66.4 dB at 10 feet distance — too quiet to be of any use. Despite this minor shortcoming, we were quite impressed with the camera's performance in this metric.

Ease of Use

The Ring Stick Up struggled in the ease of use department, receiving a below-average assessment. This poor showing results from the limited alert functions, lack of onboard data storage, and the (relatively expensive) subscription requirement to record and save videos. Additionally, we found the app to be a bit clunky given the lack of programmable alerts.

Aside from the issues with subscription, storage, and alerts, we thought the camera was easy to mount on a wall or place on horizontal surfaces. All hardware needed is included in the box. Cleverly, the base of the camera doubles as the screw-in-place wall mount.

Value

When we contrast the high up-front cost and subscription requirements of the Stick Up with its so-so performance in the ease of use analysis, we do not see it as a particularly great value. Simply put, you can get a lot more out of other cameras for considerably less money.

Conclusion