Ask yourself this: "If I save $50 on a Ring Doorbell for Black Friday, how long before I've spent the same money in subscriptions?"

With Black Friday approaching fast, Ring doorbells and security cameras are always available for massively tempting bargain prices – half price or even better. That's pretty exciting, and can take the price of the tech down to the point anyone is prepared to experiment with it. My word of warning – and I say this from a house with Ring cameras – is that you do need to be prepared to commit, heart, soul, and wallet, to that experiment. Because, honestly, their best features only really work with the subscription...

Save 60% (£60)

Ring Video Doorbell (2024): was £99.99 now £39.99 at Amazon

Ring Video Doorbell (2024) increased coverage against its predecessor with a square view that could provide head-to-toe coverage and catch so called 'porch-bandits'. Can act as an answering machine for your front door, and with the app and a sub, store videos for up to 180 days. The battery design means no wiring is needed to install, and secure design means it can't be easily removed but you'll see anyone who visits on your phone (and additionally hear them on an optional chime).

<p>🎬 1440 x 1440 px 🔋 ✔️

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The necessity of a subscription might not come as news to everyone. This is also a point in time to upgrade your Ring devices.

Many will be perfectly happy paying their subs for the security, but now feel that a higher resolution camera is a good idea and, frankly, that's fair enough. The cameras have advanced a good way since day and – although I'm sure very few people are used to upgrading their doorbell as regularly as phones or even cameras – this is a developing tech and there is something to be said for staying ahead of things, especially at points where the costs are lower.

But if you're not interested in paying a monthly subscription, the relative resolution of your camera – or any of the other benefits of the newer models especially, many of which are dependent on the cloud services that come with the subscription – will be a serious waste of money.

Remember the idea of checking what happened in your home when you're out of the house? That's a cloud service. You won't be able to do that unless you watch it live. That'll drive you mad. Nor can you download or share the footage, or capture snapshots that build up a stop-motion view of the day.

Motion alerts? Yes – you'll get told when the cameras see some motion, but you won't get any distinction between people and animals, so you'll just have to turn the alerts off if you have pets because the alerts will come so thick and fast they'll be useless.

Anyway, the answer is this – if you have one Ring doorbell camera, you'll need to spend £4.99 a month in the UK. You get one month free, so 13 months before the money you've saved in this deal is spent. It's $4.99/month in the USA.

You can also get a discount ($49.99 / £49.99) for buying a year at once, so that's potentially 15 months.

I'll leave you to decide whether it's worth it, but personally I've got two pieces of information – I find the features useful, but I'd also say that, ordinarily, I probably would not change my doorbell as frequently as every 15 months.

Never easy, is it?

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