Ring Outdoor Cam Review (2025)

The Ring Outdoor Cam's sleek cylindrical enclosure looks nothing like its boxy rectangular predecessor. Available in black or white, it has an IPX5 weatherproof rating and is 4.9 inches tall (with the stand) and 2.3 inches wide. The stand can be used on a desktop or mounted on a wall, ceiling, or soffit and adjusted for the ideal viewing angle.

The base of the camera twists off to reveal the rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. The battery is rated to last anywhere from six to twelve months between charges depending on usage and is easily removed by pressing the silver tab. To replenish the battery, take it indoors and use the included USB charging cable and charge it for several hours until the LED goes from red and green to just green.

In addition to improved aesthetics, the Ring Outdoor Cam offers beefier specs than its predecessor. It captures video at 1080p and has a 115-degree field of view, compared with the original camera's 720p resolution and 80-degree field of view. It uses 802.11n (2.4GHz) Wi-Fi to connect directly to your home network and doesn't require a hub like the Arlo Pro 2 and Eufy Cam cameras. Motion detection is video-based and two-way audio comes by way of a built-in microphone and speaker. Four infrared LEDs provide up to 30 feet of black-and-white night video.

The Outdoor Cam uses the same mobile app as other Ring devices and supports Ring's Neighbors app that lets you share pictures and video of activities captured by your Ring device with other users in your neighborhood. The app opens to a dashboard that displays thumbnails for each installed Ring device and tabs for Neighbors and History. Tap the Neighbors tab to view pictures and video of events in your neighborhood such as porch thefts, attempted break-ins, and acts of vandalism. Here you can comment on the event and view a map of the area where it took place. Next to the Neighbors tab is a History tab that takes you to a screen with a list of all of your motion and alarm events with time stamps. Tap any event to view, delete, or download recorded video of the event.

(Credit: Ring)

Ring has added a timeline feature to the camera view. When you tap a camera tab you'll see a series of events below the preview screen with timestamps. Simply scroll forward and backward through the thumbnails and tap any tab to view video from that timeline, share it with friends, or send it to the trash. To the right of the timeline bar is a Live button that launches a live video stream that can be viewed in full-screen mode by turning your phone sideways or by tapping the Square Mode button at the bottom right of the video panel. In this screen you can tap the Share button to record the live stream and share it in the Neighbors app, and there's a Siren button that activates the camera's internal siren. At the bottom of the screen are a Microphone button for two-way audio and a button that mutes the speaker. To adjust the camera's settings, tap the gear icon in the upper right corner.

The Outdoor Cam's settings screen displays the battery level and has switches to enable/disable motion recording and motion alerts. There's also a Live View button that launches a live stream, and below that are several buttons. Tap the Device Health button to change your Wi-Fi network, check Wi-Fi signal strength, update firmware, and troubleshoot notification issues. Tap the Linked Devices button to have the Stick Up Cam interact with other Ring devices. For example, you can have your Ring Pro doorbell begin recording or illuminate the Ring Floodlight when the Outdoor Cam detects motion. You can also have the camera react to Ring Alarm sensors.

Other settings allow you to adjust motion alert frequency, create motion zones, and set schedules to disable motion alerts. You can also snooze motion alerts for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, or two hours. The App Alerts button offers a dozen various tones for motion alerts and has a volume slider. As with other Ring devices, the Outdoor Cam supports Alexa voice commands that let you view video on compatible Amazon devices, and it works with IFTTT applets that let it integrate with other IFTTT devices such as smart door locks, lights, and plugs.

As with every other Ring camera and doorbell, you’ll have to subscribe to a Ring Home plan to access the recordings and to unlock certain features. The $4.99 per month/$49.99 per year Basic plan gives you 180 days of video history; package, person, and vehicle alerts; and video previews for a single camera. For comparison, Arlo Secure subscription plans start at $9.99 monthly/$95.88 yearly for 60 days of cloud storage, person and vehicle recognition, and package and animal detection, for one camera.

For additional perks, Ring's $9.99 per month/$99.99 per year Standard plan offers the same coverage for all of your Ring cameras and adds extended live view (for up to 30 minutes of continuous viewing at a time), multi-cam live views (to monitor up to four live feeds on one screen), live picture-in-picture views (so you can continue watching your camera feed while using other apps), and daily event summaries (a scrollable feed of recorded motion events).

For $19.99 per month/$199.99 per year, the Ring Home Premium plan gives you everything from the Standard plan, and adds Smart Video Search (a beta AI search tool for finding "just about anything" in your recorded motion event footage), 24/7 recording, extended warranties, and a handful of features for the Ring Alarm Security System, including professional monitoring.

Most of today's home security cameras are easy to install, but because it runs on battery power, the Ring Outdoor Cam is easier than most. I already had the Ring mobile app installed on my phone, but if this is your first Ring device, you'll have to download the app and create an account.

I charged up the battery and tapped Set Up A Device at the bottom of the dashboard screen. I selected Security Cams from the list of devices and used my phone to scan the QR code located on the Quick Setup sheet (it's also located on the inside of the battery cover). I selected my location and was given a choice to install the camera Indoors or Outdoors. I selected Outdoors, named it Backyard Cam, installed the battery, and verified that the camera was powered up. I waited a few seconds for the blue LED to begin flashing and connected the camera to my Wi-Fi network when prompted. The camera was immediately added to the network, and after a quick update and a few motion-detection settings adjustments, it was ready to use.

The Outdoor Cam delivered excellent 1080p video in my tests. Daytime video showed good color quality and sharp detail with no noticeable barrel or pincushion distortion, and black-and-white night vision video was also very sharp, with uniform lighting and none of the purple tinting that we saw with the original Stick Up Cam. Motion detection worked well, and motion alerts arrived immediately after an event. Two-way audio was clean, but the internal siren could be a bit louder.

Integrations work as advertised. I created an IFTTT applet to turn on a Philips Hue light when the Outdoor Cam detected motion and it worked perfectly. My applet to turn off an outlet on the TP-Link Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip HS300 when motion was detected also worked flawlessly, and I had no trouble using an Alexa voice command to launch a live stream on my TV using an Amazon Fire TV Stick.

(Credit: Ring)

The Ring Outdoor Cam is all about ease of use. You can place it just about anywhere on the inside or outside of your home without having to worry about staying close to an outlet or snaking a power cord. Day and night video appeared sharp in our tests, and motion detection worked well, as did Alexa and IFTTT integrations. It'd be nice if Ring would offer 24 hours of free cloud storage with its Basic plan, but its $4.99/month 180-day storage plan is one of the more affordable options around. All this earns the Ring Outdoor Cam our Editors' Choice.

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