Ring Alarm Outdoor Contact Sensor

I'm thinking this must be a fairly new product to the market because I was looking for exactly this a couple of years ago for our side gate and couldn't find anything suitable. We have everything ring in our household so this was a welcome addition and super easy to install. We had a repeated issue to begin with where it kept alerting us to a tamper issue but I suspect that was where it was tightly attached to the gate we've since used a different method of attachment and the problem has gone away. I love that this links to our home alarm system and it gives me comfort at night or when we are away that if anybody were to try to access our property using that gate we would be instantly alerted and hopefully they would be instantly scared away! As with all ring products it's super easy to install and add to your existing system and does exactly what it says on the tin. You could probably get something similar cheaper but at the end of the day you're paying for the reliability and the convenience that come with the ring products. Highly recommend

Staggered at the range and solid signal strength of this contact sensor. Fitted into a shed 60 feet from the house and easily able to connect with the Ring hub even through 65 cms of solid stone wall (albeit with a Ring extender inside the house). Never misses a beat in terms of signal strength and detection of door events. If I had a minor gripe the design is a little clunky in terms of how far the magnet projects, but modified door suround without a hitch. Well worth the investment for peace of mind.

The sensor is doing the job in my shed. But I am keen to know what will happen to it during the course of the year. Some electronic gadgets fail due to temperature and humidity variations.

The device has the nice branding with rounded edges and a good colour for an outside detector that won’t be noticed. The base plates slide off neatly so you can mark the holes for drilling. Rawl plugs and screws are included and a fine for the job. I was a little concerned about the range, but the Z-wave protocol seems to do the job: my security gate is around 50m from the base station (which is itself two rooms from the house wall) and in the shadow of a few neighbours’ fences due to the shape of my plot. I was ready to consider moving the range extender which came with my original ring package, but it wasn’t necessary. As with the rest of “Ring”, I like the programmability of devices; separate (push) notifications for “opening” and “closing” which are also available whether or not the alarm is being armed. I checked the Alexa integration and it was fine immediately. No problems at all. Addendum: I had to return it after some weeks as it was too sensitive for my outside driveway gates. Wind blowing them just a few mm set it off. Needs some sort of sensitivity or calibration control. Would be fine for locking gates and the like though.

Does the job. I don’t feel confident with the slide on connection between the device and the mounting plate. Especially as the magnet side of the device is tall but thin which means it’s easy to knock and lever off the mounting plate. I’ve chosen to reinforce the mounting by screwing a small block of wood behind the unit so that it can’t easily be knocked off. I’m sure there are advantages to it being easy to dislodge, especially if someone is trying to break in. But in my case, the teenager is a regular user of the shed door being protected and if it comes off it’s unlikely to be replaced. Which leads to a bypassed sensor and the loss of the protection I’m aiming for.

The idea is great, however the build quality is not all there, I found that once I had mounted the main unit base on my fence post, because the wood was a not ruler straight the main unit would not mount on the base, because of the slight twist in the base which caused the battery lugs to foul and stop it from sliding on, this in itself is not a major issue but it took a lot longer to install than it should have done. Also it’s so easy to remove, all the other ring devices have clips to stop them from being tampered with? Other than that it does what it says on the tin, I would like to see a schedule for it so that I can just arm it at night.

Very easy to install and setup. Connected to our side gate, which is not too far from a router, so connected immediately and was up and running in less than 10 minutes. Cannot comment about the longevity yet, but has been installed over winter without any issues or false alerts. Still on its first battery after 5 months, so that seems good.

I purchased a whole Ring alarm system setup + some extra sensors etc, this being one of them for my gate. The normal ring door sensors are quite small, smaller than I expected and I thought the Outdoor one was going to be very similar sized just grey, so I was VERY surprised to see its more the size of your fist. But, that makes sense really considering its outdoor and clearly built with a lot more weatherproofing in mind, and the range between the sensor & the magnet is very good for well, my use which was a garden gate. I did find the "Tamper" alert was a bit finicky, I found since I screwed both pieces into my gate and the mounting bracket twisted/bent ever so slightly which was all it took for the "Tamper" message to trigger so I had to unscrew it and screw the mounting bracket back ensuring it wasn't too tight but still secure and it clipped into place / tamper message disappeared and hasn't returned since. All in all, so far I'm loving the Ring security system.