Ring’s new battery-powered video doorbell captures footage before motion begins
Pre-Roll shows up in a picture-in-picture display in the app. (Ring/)Hard-wiring a video doorbell into your home isn’t the easiest DIY project to tackle, especially if you’re not comfortable around electrical work. That makes battery-powered models attractive, but the convenience comes at a cost. Back in 2017, Ring introduced its Pre-Roll feature, which gave users the ability to capture four seconds of footage from before the motion sensor kicked in to give a better picture of a sequence of events. The feature remained exclusive to hard-wired models, however, until this morning, when the company announced its new $229 Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus.Capturing rolling video is easier with a hard-wired doorbell: The constant flow of power allows the device to keep buffering footage and save it once the sensor is triggered. But without a constant flow of electricity, recording all the time becomes inefficient. Even as it improved its hardware,...