Did not abandon. Still support it. Was a Gen 1 product for sure. Ring is our V2 and so far has been very well received, great reviews and very happy customers.
We did do a $99 upgrade for everyone that had bought a Doorbot .
I've read a lot of the reviews on the DoorBot Amazon page, and frankly, I would think twice about buying Ring. Not because of the many problems with the software/hardware that DoorBot suffered, but the lack of response from your customer service reps.
Not sure if you personally read them, but customer service unresponsiveness is a common theme in those 1-2 star reviews.
Have you done anything to address this problem? DoorBot was your first gen product; you HAD to expect problems and made sure people were being responded to.
I never got a $99 upgrade offer - paid full price after never being able to get my doorbot working properly (802.11b only? Really??).
Ring has been a little better, but still get a black screen far more often than I'd like, and 3-5s latency on audio for a local wifi device is rather frustrating.
Ring is on my list for later this year; I look forward to trying it. I was going to go for Doorbot but the bad reviews had put me off. I don't see the same reviews for Ring. Best of luck :)
Appreciate your opinion (really do). The design was driven not just by what we wanted it to look like but also the physical constraints around some of the features the product has. The main drivers:
1. Battery that lasts for one year (5,250mah)
2. Infrared night vision with a IR cut filter
3. Advanced, programmable motion detection that can detect people up to 30 feet out at 180 degrees from the device.
4. Powerful WiFi antenna
Each one of these drives a certain amount of the design. I say this not as a excuse but just to give some background that the design did have some physical drivers behind it.
I am very happy with how the device looks and also the feedback from the customers.
I fully understand that this is your baby, but to me, as someone with a strong liking for good industrial design, the product looks like it wasn't pushed all the way through. This is, basically, not a Nest- or Lacie-level design. It lacks polish. This is Home Depot, it merely doesn't look ugly.
To be concrete with the nitpicks [1] -
* Multiple grooves in the top/black part that add nothing to the design and only fracture the overall look. They would've been a bit less intrusive if the camera lens had a bit of vertical padding around it, but that too is missing. The whole top part looks like something that was driven entirely by the engineering constraints. It just completely neglects rudimentary visual balance.
* Rounded vertical edges. Very large radius has no chance of stylistically matching anything on or near a typical door. It would've been less of an issue if the horizontal edges too were rounded, but they aren't, so the design is not even self-consistent. You have an exaggerated smoothness on the sides and blade-sharp edges at the top and bottom.
* Rounded edges wrap behind the device. This implicitly detaches the gadget from the surface it sits on and makes it stick out that much more. This is probably my biggest gripe with how the whole thing looks when mounted.
* Thin black ledge at the bottom that doesn't stretch the full width. It's also missing on other images, meaning probably that some of them are renderings.
* The logo. How would you like to have a branded door or even a door handle? Same here. If you feel like doing some cross-promotion, put the logo on the top side of the device. Those who are interested in learning what the device is will find it.
What if it's intended to indicate status? It's a $200 replacement for a sticky note on your door... Maybe it should be conspicuous, with a distinct style and a prominent logo. Like, you're not knocking on just anyone's door, your knocking on the door of someone with a Ring doorbell on their house and a Tesla charging port on the garage, etc. Maybe it's meant to appeal to that sort of person.
I live in a neighborhood where Teslas, BMW 7-Series, etc. are far more common than Hondas. Lots of money, and very status-conscious. And I can't imagine seeing this on any of the houses on my street. If you are the kind of person who hires an interior designer to design every room of your house, and a high end landscaping service to keep the yard looking nice, you're going to care about an incongruous doorbell too.
The domain was definitely not cheap. So far I think it was the right decision to buy it and I believe we have seen enough benefit from it to make it worthwhile. However we will not know if it was really worth it for at least another year or two.
We had already been doing a lot of direct business before we changed the name to Ring (we were formally Doorbot).
I basically made the assumption that if Ring.com increased our direct sales by X%, how many years would it pay back. It turned out that even at a very high price for the domain it did not have to increase sales by a lot (single digit) in order to pay itself off over just a few years.
We launched Ring.com in October and so far it appears that the benefits are happening however it will never be something that we can 100% be sure of.
I am actually not a big fan of domains anymore but I think a extremely marquee one like Ring.com was worth stretching the budget for.
We more then asked Apple we had submitted the project to them through the MFI process. Apple changed their policy and I have to think it is because of the incredible response this story got.
I am Jamie Siminoff the inventor of POP. We are in the process of confirming if the changes that Apple PR told the press are true. If they are then POP will be made and I look forward to delivering it to all of the doubters out there.
@Devilboy, I hope you order one as I will hand deliver it and take that $10:)
I hope your product ends up in the Apple store someday. (I'd join the kickstarter, but it's closed; if you re-open at some point, great, otherwise I'll just buy it at retail.)
Did your original Project (and the pop charger people pay for) contemplate the use of a lightning port? It didn't. Then why cancel the project when you cannot add it?
Even if you are not allowed to use the 30 pin... Why don't you just use an USB port on the device?
Or just avoid the "Made for iPhone" sticker. I have plenty if iPhone accessories that aren't certified but work nonetheless.
