Gadget Review: Keep an eye on your home with the Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam

Smart home security cameras are all the rage these days and several companies have piled on to the bandwagon. Whether it is your people, pets or property — or all three — our connected world allows you to keep a watch on all that is dear to you from wherever you are, whenever you want.

Think of the smart security cameras as the modern reincarnation of the CC TV cameras of old — CC here standing for ‘Closed Circuit’, of course — except that the circuit is no longer a closed loop of the cameras supplying images to a fixed monitoring room with a static recording device. Instead, it’s a more open circuit one, where your cameras stream their images wirelessly to your mobile phone wherever you are in the world — and you store the footage on the cloud. Factor in a few more smart features that our modern digital technology can supply over the older CC TV set-ups — such as software-based motion detection and alerts of several sorts – and you have an accurate picture of where personal security gadgets are headed.

Given the above description, who better to bring these cameras to market than the companies that are at the forefront of smart home connectivity, such as Amazon, Apple and their ilk? And the Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam is just such an offering from Ring, which is an Amazon company dedicated to home security devices.

The new Pan-Tilt camera is sharp, dependable and seamlessly integrates with advanced Alexa and Ring smart home routines. It offers premium features and hardware (like Picture-in-Picture on Alexa displays), but you’ll need a subscription for basic functions like video recording. More on that later.

The camera smoothly and quietly pivots on its base, providing 360-degree coverage. It also has colour night vision for better clarity in low light. Weighing very little, this camera moves effortlessly with a gentle, silent motion. Its compact design (2.4 x 5.8 inches) takes up minimal space and comes in black or white. The sleek head and base are unobtrusive, so it blends well into any room without looking overly mechanical or intrusive.

The Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam is simple in design, with just the lens in the centre, a USB-C power port on the back, and small holes for the microphone and speaker. It lacks local storage, so there’s no MicroSD card slot. While it features a small LED status light, there’s no built-in spotlight. There is a physical privacy cover that snaps into place over the lens like a lens-cap, but I do wish there was an option to turn the camera off remotely.

You can either place or mount this camera, but mounting it will require a more permanent installation on a wall or ceiling.

Setting up the Ring camera is straightforward and hassle-free. Just download the app, add a new device, scan the QR code, name the camera, and enter your Wi-Fi details. Once connected, the camera is easy to control and adjust, with smooth, near-instantaneous movement via the app’s directional buttons. The camera offers good coverage of the front and sides, and the on-screen controls respond quickly. However, the 1080p video quality is average. Daylight performance left something to be desired, with overexposed lighting from my living room window and somewhat dull colours. It wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t impress either.

This Ring camera's wide-angle lens is great for covering a larger area, allowing me to keep an eye on a wide space from a single position near my front door. From there, it provided a broad view of the surroundings. However, the fisheye effect is noticeable, with some distortion at the top and bottom of the image, which becomes more evident when the camera moves.

Also, while the Pan-Tilt does a good job of capturing activity, I found it difficult to make out finer details like small objects on the coffee table or specific facial features. On the plus side, this lower resolution has a benefit: it doesn’t consume as much bandwidth as 4K cameras, meaning even with an older router, the footage remains smooth.

One area in which this Ring camera stands out is in its two-way audio feature. The speakers deliver clear sound, and the microphone captures the other person's voice with impressive clarity. Conversations feel natural, without the typical tinny distortion you often hear on other cameras.

Coming to the Ring app, it is designed to manage more than just cameras, allowing you to control various smart home devices, such as lights. The main screen, or dashboard, offers a quick overview of your camera’s live feed, access to video history, and widgets for other smart devices. Tapping on the camera opens up the live video, with controls positioned below (or above in landscape mode). From here, you can use the intercom, pan the camera like a drone, and trigger the siren.

However, to record and export clips, you’ll need a subscription, and you can’t take screenshots from recorded footage. The camera also lacks auto-tracking for now, though it's expected to be added later. For now, it’s a basic indoor camera that can move around when needed, but not continuously.

You can adjust device settings, set up privacy zones, and modify the camera’s sensitivity through the advanced settings menu, accessed by tapping the ellipsis in the top-right corner of the live feed. Ring does a good job of keeping things simple, with all additional controls and plan management hidden in a side menu on the top-left of the home screen. Overall, the app is clean, user-friendly, and encourages upgrading or expanding your Ring setup with gentle prompts.

Among the features we liked best in this Ring camera was the Alexa integration. Amazon owns Ring, so this camera integrates seamlessly with the Alexa smart home platform. I set it up to send motion alerts to my Echo smart speakers and could also view live footage on my Echo Show. Ring’s devices can also make it simple to schedule and automate tasks. For instance, if motion is detected, the camera can trigger other nearby cameras to start recording or turn on your smart lights, giving you that veritable ring of security, as its name suggests.

That said, one sore point with this device is that Ring restricts such key features as video recording and cloud storage to paying subscribers. You can still use the camera without a subscription, but you'll be limited to basic motion alerts and live video streaming. The subscription plans are for a single camera or for all Ring cameras in your home, but they still keep adding on many times to the Dh299 price as recurring charges.

If you do subscribe, you get 180 days of video storage, advanced features like picture-in-picture and snapshot capture to view activity throughout the day between motion events. Your subscription also affects the app experience — free users only get basic notifications and lose features like person detection – and in the final analysis, it is this additional expense for features that some competitors are offering free that really holds this device back, despite the hardware being top notch. If you are satisfied with only a live feed, however, the Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, with its wide field of vision, is a security camera you’ll be happy with.

Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam

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