Installing a Ring 2 Doorbell

07 Apr 2019

Our car was stolen out of our driveway last October. We discovered the car missing at 9 am, and reported the theft to the police. By 12:30 pm they had been to the house to take a statement. At 3:30 pm that day we got a call from the police saying the car had been recovered 70 miles away, and by 6 pm I had my car back in my possession.

The condition of the car was not good once I got it back. It was heavily damaged and it had an overpowering odor of Marijuana. Our insurance company was great, and we got the car fixed and detailed, and month later you would never be able to tell that the car had once smelled like a stoner’s filthy pair of underpants.

What insurance could not help fix is the long lasting feeling of being violated. We later found out that thieves had hit other houses in the neighborhood with various items being stolen and and property vandalized. It would seem that what once felt like a pretty safe neighborhood was actually not at all safe from crime, and when you think logically about it, why would it be? For weeks I was constantly looking out the window to make sure my car was still there.

One of the Cyber-Monday deals on Amazon was for a Ring 2 doorbell. It seemed like a logical thing to purchase in our situation, and the price was reasonable, so I bought it.

So…I just got around to installing it yesterday.

So here is how you do it:

1. As soon as you get the Ring 2 package from Amazon, open the box and start charging the battery. This takes an unusually long time. I opened the box at 1 pm, and started charging the battery at about 2 pm. The battery did not complete charging until 8:47 pm, and it was dark outside then.

2. Watch this video while your waiting for the battery to charge. This is really all you need.

3. Get started uninstalling the old doorbell, and mount the mounting bracket if you need one, while you wait. I used the angled one. There is a tiny tiny little instruction manual pertaining to these brackets. I found it after I completed installing it on my own, and it would have saved me a trip to Menard’s, so read those instructions.

4. Once the sun has gone down the battery will finally finish charging. You configure it before you install it. Now during the configuration process the doorbell will start updating itself, and your phone will say please wait while the light on the doorbell is on as this means the doorbell is still updating. The light will go off, but when you click the continue button, the phone will warn you that this will end the configuration process and you will have to complete it later. This stumped me. After a 1/2 hour I just clicked “Yes” on the warning screen and the doorbell worked fine. What strange user interface!

5. Once it’s configure just slap up where the old doorbell used be, and Bob’s your uncle.

Below is a picture of me taken by the doorbell while I finished installing it, in the dark.