Such as?
Meh. If I’m willing to shell out > $200 for a video doorbell…and I am…I’m more than willing to send them another $30 to for a whole year of 6-months rolling storage of and access to my video. I can pay for that by skipping a single 20 oz coffee at Starbucks once every two months.
Looking forward to it.
I mentioned it later in my post - do what Arlo does and allow users to review 7 days (or however many) of recordings. I realize it’s a different product, but the video cloud recording concept is the same. Also, I just realized Skybell offers free cloud storage, and I think as that product matures and becomes more serious competition to Ring (if it isn’t already), Ring may have to re-think this crutch of a revenue stream. Of course, this is assuming Skybell doesn’t end up introducing cloud video recording paid subscriptions 
EDIT: NM, I misread the context in which you were asking that. Nevertheless, I think instead of forcing users to pay straight up and giving the option to review 7 days worth of recordings is just a form of marketing - more people will be happy about that and tell others to get a Ring (rather than saying "it’s OK - they charge you for the cloud subscription though so you might as well get a Skybell). Surely, cloud subscription can’t be their only revenue stream is all I’m saying. Maybe they can add paid add-ons to their app for extended features or partner with monitoring services to provide additional paid-for monitoring, etc. I don’t know - I’m not a marketing guy, so I’m sure there are better ideas out there.
Not everyone may feel this way. But I suppose Arlo users could argue the same thing if Netgear forced them to pay for extended storage of recordings and didn’t give them the free option. Maybe Netgear is just being extra nice then. For one though, it definitely doesn’t hurt to offer it. BTW: Blink, a direct competitor of Arlo, although not as popular, also offers free cloud video storage. Who knows though, maybe once all these guys offering free cloud video storage get enough customers onboard, they’ll start charging everyone anyway as I alluded to earlier.
BTW: Ring’s cloud storage access, from what I understand, doesn’t afford you access to all video for that year but only provides you access for the last 6-montsh [rolling] of video within that year timeframe. So in December 2016, you’re not going to review what happened back in January 2016 and will only be able to look as far back as June 2016… that is, of course, unless you download all your videos from Ring’s site and store them locally I suppose one could write up a simple script to do that, and have an extended archive of Ring video recordings.
@csuk I for one, applaud you for pushing to deliver a partial integration rather than making everyone wait even longer until the video integration is fixed. I’m happy to know that the integration of video will arrive and that I have something now rather than have nothing until it is all complete.
I saw a similar stance in recently when you guys released the fix for the hue lights in multiple steps. Again I was thankful to get a tactical change whilst you all worked on creating the final fix. 
Then I suppose my original question (“Such as?”) remains.
No. But I’m betting that the vast majority of people who have enough disposable income to drop > $200 on a doorbell (as well as all of the other HA gear/services that such people are spending their hard-earned shekels on) are not going to even blink at the idea of a $2.50-$3.00/month for the convenience of a service like that. That is, unless they place no value at all on storage and viewing of those videos, in which case it being free or not is of no consequence in the grand scheme of decision making.
That is correct, of course. I worded my statement about that rather poorly, and will correct it in my original post.
[quote=“DParker, post:105, topic:28977, full:true”]
Then I suppose my original question (“Such as?”) remains.[/quote]
Sorry, I updated again probably while you were replying - they can probably monetize further by adding additional monitoring services (e.g. paying someone else to ‘monitor’ your front door if you know you’ll be on vacation and off the grid, etc), This would probably be a slim use case but I could see people utilizing it - similar to how one might pay a company to monitor their alarm system (like SmartHome), etc. Or they can add additional extended pay-for features to the app that need to be unlocked. Or, offering ‘tiers’ that afford you more features at higher levels, while the lowest tier is “free” but with limited features/capabilities.
[quote]
No. But I’m betting that the vast majority of people who have enough disposable income to drop > $200 on a doorbell (as well as all of the other HA gear/services that such people are spending their hard-earned shekels on) are not going to even blink at the idea of a $2.50-$3.00/month for the convenience of a service like that. That is, unless they place no value at all on storage and viewing of those videos, in which case it being free or not is of no consequence in the grand scheme of decision making.[/quote]
Fair enough. If, and when, prices drop on these units though, I would think that will be less of a compelling argument. Maybe prices will never drop on these units, unless they release newer versions that are massively better, etc. Who knows… but yea, if you think about it paying a few bucks a month isn’t all that bad. I guess a lot of other companies (e.g. Evernote, Dropbox, etc) are doing this anyway. I just don’t like the idea of Ring owning exclusive access and rights to my videos and forcing me to pay in order to obtain them. I should be able to record locally and store the videos how I want, IMHO. Perhaps a form of revenue could be an option to pay for “local streaming” where they will enable an option allowing you to store video on a NAS or something. There would be a fee to enable this but at least you could then store the video locally and keep it for as long as you want.
just order one! completely a noob to ALL of this, and need to spend some nights reading what CoRE is, hell I don’t eeven know what IFTTT is.
Just chiming (no pun intended) in on the cloud thing too. I have Homeboy cameras and they also have free cloud storage. You can access the last 12 hours for free, but there is a subscription service if you want more.
All these companies are trying to get you to pay for what is almost free now days. You can get UNLIMITED video storage on Amazon Cloud Drive, for example, for $60 a year. And there are cheaper options out there.
If the camera companies give the user the ability to store the recordings locally, a lot of people will just manage it themselves.
I guess your average user just wants to stick some cameras on the wall, go to an app, and be done with it. I can understand that. An extra $30 dollars or so isn’t a big deal.
. . .
One thing that bothers me about the ST integrations is that the video and images on the ST servers are pretty much out of your control. I don’t have a good way to see how many there are, etc. I can flip through a carousel tile or look in the SHM notification history. But that’s about it.
I have no problem them charging a reasonable fee. Bandwidth, storage and maintaining a server is not cheap, especially for video. If it was free you know someone 10 years from now would throw a fit if they discontinued the service.
$30 a year? Reasonable, for unlimited storage.
$10-30 a month (Nest) for limited day storage? Unreasonable.
Usually I’d agree with that reasoning. However, the state of the video doorbell market is, at least for the time being, such that free video storage/access vs. that service at a cheap (or at least reasonable) subscription rate doesn’t constitute any sort of real competitive advantage. Why not? Because the features and other attributes of the leading models are so disparate right now that they are what drive purchasing decisions. Were they closer in terms of capabilities, design (with prices remaining competitive) then additional goodies like free video storage for n days (or whatever) might start influencing people’s purchasing decisions. But that isn’t the case…at least not yet.
As an example, my own decision making came down to the Ring Pro vs the SkyBell HD. I like most of the features of the SkyBell, but as I pointed out here…
https://community.smartthings.com/t/ring-vs-skybell-vs-kuna-vs/14908/262?u=dparker
…its form factor makes it a non-starter for me, and likely most other potential buyers who are looking to replace an existing doorbell that’s mounted on a door jam or other location where the hockey puck shape of the SkyBell prevents it from being installed cleanly, if at all. So I wouldn’t buy the SkyBell even if they gave me unlimited video storage and retrieval for free.
I’m a pretty low tech guy. Was concerned if I had the smarts to use IFTTT and found out it is super easy! Just go to IFTTT.com, sign up & play around with it.
I am only going to say this once. Direct personal attacks are not tolerated on this community. Continued attacks will result in closed threads and possibly a permanent ban from our community.
That’s why you should be able to just keep your videos locally - there’s no (real) reason for it to use other company’s bandwidth, storage and maintenance.
Yes, there are advantages like easy access from everywhere and protection against physical theft, but not everyone is looking for this - and they should at least give you the OPTION to store your videos locally if you want to.
FORCING you to use their cloud service is not a nice move at all. It’s not like they gave you the device for free and their profit comes from the cloud service - you paid a full price for the device itself - you shouldn’t be forced to purchase additional services for basic standard features like saving your videos (remember the device is a… video camera).
Can you imagine Apple or Samsung forcing you to pay for a cloud service in order to keep / save the videos you take with your phone’s camera, by not including an option to save it locally? IT’S OK TO OFFER, BUT NOT TO FORCE.
Just waiting for the device type for The Ring. Bought The Ring Pro for my birthday and have enjoyed it. Nice product.
It’s out:
It’s working. And it’s fast. Just setup a SmartRule on my phone and it worked quickly and as expected.
Huh…glad you got it setup. Anyone else having problems getting past the Ring authorization page on the app? I’ve tried both Android and iOS, but after I enter my Ring username and password, it takes me to a page on Ring’s site where I can’t click anything. It tells me SmartThings wants READ permissions, but I can’t click anything to authorize it. I can only click “DONE” in the upper right, or the back arrow in the upper left. Both of those take me back to square one. Just me?
I have it set up and installed as a device. Kind of funny to me it is under Cameras 
Thanks for getting this integration pushed out guys.
edit: For Core pistons, your doorbell shows up under button and motion sensors.