Video Doorbells are a great way to put an end to missed deliveries or avoid the hassle of cold callers, and now it appears that Ring Video Doorbells might be about to get a little bit smarter with the addition of pre-recorded replies - a feature that rival doorbells from Arlo and Google Nest already offer.
According to smart home news website The Ambient, a reader flagged that a section marked ‘Smart Responses’ had appeared in the settings section of the Ring Video Doorbell app. They said the icon featured a speech bubble radiating from the doorbell, indicating that it may soon be possible to select pre-recorded messages to play through the doorbell when it's pressed.
However, the reader said that tapping the setting doesn't currently do anything. We checked our own Ring Video Doorbell app here at TechRadar, and the setting wasn’t available.
Playing catch-up
Both Arlo’s wired video doorbell and Nest Hello already offer a similar feature. On the Arlo Video Doorbell, users who have an Arlo Smart subscription can choose to have a message broadcast through the doorbell's speaker if the doorbell call hasn’t been answered within 20 seconds. However, unlike the Nest Hello, it doesn’t offer a choice of pre-recorded messages. With Google’s video doorbell there are a number of pre-recorded messages including 'We'll be right there' and 'You can leave it'.
"We’re not commenting on this story," Ring told TechRadar.
It’s not clear which Ring Video Doorbell this feature was seen to be available for, but we’d hope it would be rolled out to all of Ring’s doorbells. So as well as top-of-the-range devices like the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 3 Plus, we’d like to see it on the brand's entry-level doorbells, including Ring’s recently announced Ring Video Doorbell Wired, which goes on sale at the end of this month and costs $59.99 / AU$119 / £49.
