We bought the Ring Pro doorbell back in early 2016, but recently decided to switch to the Nest Hello doorbell. Before we bought the Nest Hello, I was researching to see how it would be to install it after having the Ring Pro — do the holes line up? Does it cover the same area? I couldn’t find much on the topic, so I thought I would share my experience and also talk about a few of the immediate differences I’ve noticed right away.
INSTALLING THE NEST HELLO
Nest Hello has a professional install option where people will come out to your house to take care of everything for you. I feel like I’m pretty handy, and I installed the Ring Pro doorbell before this, so I did not purchase the installation.
Installation was super easy, but the holes for the Ring Pro did not align with what I needed for the Nest Hello. We were able to reuse the bottom hole, but had to drill a new top hole. The Nest Hello came with a drill bit to use on brick or stucco which we have, and the drilling was easy. We did have to fill and repaint the previous Ring Pro hole because it was showing after we installed the Nest Hello. Nest walks you through the installation process from within the app, and it was very easy.
DIFFERENCES I’VE NOTICED WITH THE NEST HELLO
The image on the Nest Hello is more narrow than the Ring Pro image. The Ring Pro gives a little bit of a fisheye look but with the Nest Hello, the image is less distorted. I can see more of the area directly in front of the camera which is better for me to see packages left at the door.
The Nest Hello motion detection is more accurate than with my Ring Pro. With the Ring Pro, I would be notified of motion, but when I looked at the video, it would only have recorded the tail end of the motion i.e., a person walking away from the door. The Nest Hello records 24-7 so I can always see the full video of everything happening.
Notifications on the Nest Hello are way better than the Ring Pro. The Ring Pro app sends you a notification when there is motion, but there is no preview; you literally have to click into each clip to review the video. It was really annoying because most of my notifications were just a cars passing by, but I would have to click into each one individually. The Nest Hello app shows basically a little .gif of all the motion history. You can set up motion zones and it even can recognize faces. It’s so much easier being able to review all the triggered motion in a continuous flow rather than opening individual clips.
I’ve only had the Nest Hello for one week but I love it so far and I’m really happy with it. Since we already have another Nest camera and were familiar with the Nest app, it was a very natural transition!
