Ring cameras are losing free features for existing customers

[Radian]

I was astounded to read that some of the currently free facilities provided by Ring cameras will be disabled unless a paid subscription is taken out.

I'm glad I don't have any of this kit but it makes my blood boil when this kind of thing happens. I see this development as a much clearer case of bait and switch which Ring has already been taken to court in a class action about hidden subscriptions before.

 

To pay-wall-off a previously free facility (that may well have been the deciding factor in a purchase) after the purchase has taken place looks like nothing short of a gangster move to me. I wonder how Ring customers here would feel about this?

[Kelvin]

It’s why I won’t have anything like this that’s subscription based ever again. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by Kelvin

[MikeSharp01]

What we need is and open source product with 3D printed package. This tutorial here: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-cam-video-streaming-web-server-camera-home-assistant/ gets you a lump of the way there, hopefully the ESP32 device, about a £10 er from Amazon, is not spyhardware .

 

Maybe we should make this a BH project for the common good. 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Maybe we should make this a BH project for the common good. 

Have you finished the ESP based energy monitor yet?

[Onoff]

As an aside the HIVE cameras we bought to keep an eye on my Dad / his house, when he got ill, go offline in 2025. They weren't cheap either!

 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/07/hive-to-axe-its-cameras-over-the-next-few-years--meaning-they-ll/

[SteamyTea]

My TOR webserver, which is free to set up i.e. needs no domain registered or a paid for hosting service, is proving to be very reliable.

Not sure how well it would work with live streaming video, should be OK as it is relatively low resolution.

All encrypted, many times, as well.

[dpmiller]

I've got a couple of Tapo cameras and they've got an rtsp livestream that you could pipe into another recorder/server; I just monitor it on a couple of windows in VLC. Is the same possible with these brands?

[MikeSharp01]

26 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Have you finished the ESP based energy monitor yet?

Yes and no, the  monitor works fine, but I have not sorted the best data logging approach as yet - have tried Graphana, with inFluxDB which works well on a PC server but overwhelms my RPi (Model 3 B). That and the Universal block software, one heap of code you configure what's connected via the onboard web server interface, just grew like topsy as I added more sensors - so it now has a CO, C0₂ , Temp, Humidity, Light & IR proximity detector. Plus work is very sticky at the moment and the build fills the remaining chunk of time.

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

13 minutes ago, Onoff said:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/07/hive-to-axe-its-cameras-over-the-next-few-years--meaning-they-ll/

YES and that's a bit much isn't it. British gas are getting it wrong all over the place. But perhaps you should be more worried, in 20 years time, about this: https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/3/23624328/ford-self-repossessing-car-patent-connected-car-nightmare a bit further down the same page as the Ring info above. 

[Pocster]

Anything cloud based is always begging for a cash milk .

Just get a nvr and a ip camera ( reolink video door bell ) . All quite cheap and cheerful.

[SteamyTea]

51 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Yes and no, the  monitor works fine, but I have not sorted the best data logging approach as yet

*.CSV to somewhere on the network.

I must have a go when I get some enthusiasm back.

[MikeSharp01]

22 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

*.CSV to somewhere on the network.

Would work if there was a node that do the transfer, but I wanted to log straight to a data base from the ESP device and that won't do CSV, on Influx each data point gets its own time stamp and you can give it your own if you want but why bother when influx does it for you. 

[SteamyTea]

24 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Would work if there was a node that do the transfer, but I wanted to log straight to a data base from the ESP device and that won't do CSV, on Influx each data point gets its own time stamp and you can give it your own if you want but why bother when influx does it for you. 

This is where I start to get confused, and rapidly loose interest.

There seems to be dozens of programs that can be used for data collection, all have there quirks.

Surely it cannot be hard to write a bit if Python (or MicroPython) that grabs the sensor data, then stores it in a time stamped file on a network connected device.

Then anything you want to do i.e. charts, statistics, relay control, just accessed that file.

Has to be easier that setting up say mosquito, then nodeRed, then, something else, then something else, and then something else.....

 

I often think that the aim is lost in the past objectives.

 

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

you should be more worried

 

I read delinquent in there and have Ford Capris...

[MikeSharp01]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Has to be easier that setting up say mosquito, then nodeRed, then, something else, then something else, and then something else.....

If you want to travel a long way you need to build as abstractly as you can on the shoulders of giants rather that reinventing the wheel all the time. No point in striving for the moon and first setting up a bauxite mine, associated power station and smelter to get the ingredients and then process them into the aluminium for the outer shell! The challenge, as we have seen above is, is choosing your giants on the basis of not just 'does it today' but will continue for a good number of years without the giant disappearing from beneath you!

[MikeSharp01]

2 hours ago, Onoff said:

I read delinquent in there and have Ford Capris...

Did I see you trickling across the motorway bridge at Dunton green the other day - if not there must be more than one of you and we might need to call in Capri control to ensure the relevant reproduction rights are taken away

[Onoff]

24 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Did I see you trickling across the motorway bridge at Dunton green the other day

 

Would have been the black Mondeo the other day or the blue Pug this morning! 

[Radian]

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Then anything you want to do i.e. charts, statistics, relay control, just accessed that file.

 

The Linux way 😄

I'd always want any interaction with the data to be web based in order to leverage the processing power of whatever device was doing the browsing along with some kind of graphing toolset and some kind of DB to manage access. That's for visualisation. To actually do something practical with the data means a messaging system and for that, nothing can beat MQTT. Node Red is just one of many ways of hooking into MQTT, python and ESP libraries also do that depending on what you're developing.

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

Would have been the black Mondeo the other day or the blue Pug this morning! 

No it was a Capri all right - mk1 in bronze looked very good! So there is someone else about!

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Radian said:

The Linux way

Yes.

Do one thing, and one thing only, but do it very well.

Then move onto the next thing.

[ProDave]

6 hours ago, pocster said:

Anything cloud based is always begging for a cash milk .

Just get a nvr and a ip camera ( reolink video door bell ) . All quite cheap and cheerful.

It was over 20 years ago when i was in the last year or 2 of a "proper office job"  where we had a pretty normal setup, with individual desktop computers with the software needed installed on them, and an office network for data storage, backups and handling the email servers and wed service.

 

Then one day it was announced "we are going to outsource all out IT to a cloud based service" so all programs, and all data would be served from and stored on an outsourced data centre somewhere.

 

I remember at the time thinking "what a bloody stupid idea, what idiot decided that was good?"

 

Thankfully I left shortly afterwards and have been self employed since in charge of my own destiny and free to make my own good or stupid decisions.

[Radian]

Well there's not much more to say about Amazon (nee Ring) and their  bait & switch tactics. Them and the other companies that seem to think nothing of pulling the rug from under their customer's feet. I need to divert my dwindling energies into making as much of my own useful stuff as I can.

 

37 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Do one thing, and one thing only, but do it very well.

Then move onto the next thing.

 

Which is..?

If ever there was a man in need of a free, lightweight, battle-hardened message handling system it has to be you and your distributed sensors 😃

 

I would thoroughly recommend having a look at this guide on andomnerdtutorials from where this diagram originates:

 

[MikeSharp01]

3 minutes ago, Radian said:

Well there's not much more to say about Amazon (nee Ring) and their  bait & switch tactics.

Except loads of others could do it, so Node-RED is Open Source and you can down load it onto your local system, same with many other things and as @ProDave says having them local at least means you cannot be cut off, however your OS upgrades may leave them high and dry and so it is still something of a mine field. The basic MQTT, Broker (could be Mosquito but others are available for local install) and Node-RED combination is hellish robust and fast enough for the average human not to notice the reaction time. So +1 to that. 

[Onoff]

20 hours ago, Radian said:

I wonder how Ring customers here would feel about this?

 

Talk to @pocster, he's an expert on ring cameras.

[Pocster]

8 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

Talk to @pocster, he's an expert on ring cameras.

Dirty (expletive deleted) wit 

 

Never forget downloading “ The Ring” and being so disappointed 

Edited March 5, 2023 by pocster