Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen Review

The Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen is a sleek indoor/outdoor 1080p HD camera available in black or white. It has some basic features that allow you to monitor motion and people, and it has two-way audio capabilities so you can fend off solicitors from the comfort of your home.

Video Quality

The Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen captures footage in 1080p resolution, which is really the base standard in today's market. The daytime image clarity allowed me to read down to the fifth line of the letter chart pretty well, which is more than I can say of many other 1080p cameras I tested.

Daytime Quality Nighttime Quality

The image is darker than I would like, but I was able to make out all of the colors well enough, other than indigo, which blends into the black background. The shadows are quite dark, and the sky is overexposed. By contrast, the nighttime footage captured in our tests was dark and punchy, showing lots of detail, though, in the shadows, it appears to be too dark to make out certain features.

Monitoring Performance

The Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen didn't skip a beat in monitoring performance testing, consistently capturing motion all the way out to 20 feet. However, I wish it came with facial recognition.

The Ring app features a useful system for managing motion zones, with eight drag-and-drop points to create up to three zones. The feature set of the Ring Stick Up is pretty basic, with only motion and subject recognition and two-way audio capability. This camera monitors motion consistently and accurately, but I would expect a camera in this price range to have a wider variety of features.

Ease of Use

Aside from a few inconveniences, the Ring app is simple and user-friendly. It has a clean layout that you can customize and is highly intuitive. Ring has a large line of security cameras and has spent a lot of resources on creating a good app, and it shows. My main concern with the Ring app is that almost all of the feature capabilities are locked down without some form of paid subscription to Ring Home. Upon opening the Ring app, you're presented with a thumbnail image of the latest motion event from the camera and a timer in the bottom left-hand corner showing how long ago that thumbnail image was captured. I like this feature, but a live view of the camera would be even better. Once you're in the camera's live view, there's lots of easy access to most features with just a quick click.

In testing the battery performance of the Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen, it lost an average of 1% battery life over our several-day testing period. Ring doesn't specify the battery life expectation of the Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen, but our testing suggests that users could expect up to three months between charges. Compared to other battery-powered cameras that we reviewed, three months is a fairly good battery life.

Should You Buy the Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen?

If you're not deterred by a monthly subscription, the Ring Stick Up Battery 2nd Gen can deliver reasonably clear image quality and is a good fit for those who already own products within the Ring family. I like the indoor/outdoor capability, but it's a hard sell due to its average image clarity and sharpness, and price point. This camera doesn't offer great value compared to others I tested and only delivers average image clarity in both day and nighttime circumstances. If you're not already a Ring product owner, you may want to consider other options.

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