The Ring Intercom makes the door to your flat smarter, enabling you to talk to people at your apartment building's door or even buzz them in from anyway, via the Ring app. Previously, Ring had added an Auto-Verify feature that meant you could allow Amazon delivery drivers to access the door of your building without needing to bother you at all – and now a new layer has been added to Auto-Verify that means you can give anyone the ability to buzz themselves in through the Ring app, but all under your control.
The Auto-Verified Guests feature lets apartment-dwellers provide keyless, verified building access to the people and services they trust, from the dog walker or regular cleaner to family members. This new feature can unlock the building entrance using the Ring app on their smartphone, removing the need to copy additional building keys, give out key fobs, or share the entrance code.
You can decide when to give access, and for how long, so you have complete control of the entrance to your building at all times. Access can be granted round-the-clock, on particular days or only between certain hours. These settings can be updated, or access can be revoked entirely, from the Ring app at any time, and you'll be notified any time someone uses this feature.
To set up an Auto-Verified Guest, navigate to the Devices section of your Ring app through the menu. Tap on Ring Intercom, then tap Shared Access, then Manage Access, and tap the '+' icon to display the Add User screen. You'll then see Auto-Verified Guest. Tap this and adjust the settings before sharing the virtual key with another user who has the Ring app installed on their phone.
Ring is well-known for some of the best video doorbells on the market, but this is the closest it's come to getting into the best smart lock space by offering a solution to a potential annoyance that come with living in an apartment building.
Although this may seem like a minor update it is still a big step forward for users of the Ring Intercom, and flat owners who have yet to buy the smart home gadget.
Now, this solution only lets people into your building, not into your flat itself, so there are limits – but who knows, maybe a Ring smart lock is on the horizon to solve the last part of the problem too.
If you're still sat on the fence about whether or not this is the entry-solution for you, our Ring Intercom review would be worth a read (we awarded it four stars).
Recent news regarding the not-so-small matter that some Ring camera features are about to disappear behind a subscription has meant that users of Ring products are being stripped of certain features, so to have new features also being added (with hopefully more in the pipeline) should provide some comfort.
