A Ring Protect Plan doesn’t cost much, but it adds a ton of value

Best answer: A Ring Protect Basic plan costs $3 per month per device and provides 60 days of video history. The Protect Plus plan covers all of your Ring cameras for $10 per month and extends your warranty on each product.

Breaking down Ring Protect plans

While the best Ring products, including Ring’s Video Doorbells and Security Cams, work well independently, they work even better with a Ring Protect Plan. Free Ring accounts will let you connect all your Ring products, but you’ll be forced to rely on your fast reflexes to view live footage since these devices require a cloud account to save recordings. So to get the most out of your cameras — like the excellent Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 — you’ll want to consider a Ring Protect plan.

If you only have a couple of Ring cameras, Ring Protect Basic offers plenty.

If you have fewer than four Ring cameras, you’ll probably be best suited with the Ring Protect Basic plan, which costs $3 per month per device (or $30 per device with annual purchase). With it, you’ll be able to store 60 days of video history at a time, allowing you to save and share motion clips. Ring’s app makes it easy to scroll through a timeline of all events with full-frame footage rather than seeing a giant convoluted list of thumbnails, as some other companies’ apps do.

The Protect Plus plan may be a better option for households with several Ring cameras and/or a Ring Alarm. It’s pricier at $10 a month (or $100 annually), but it covers all Ring devices in a single home — if you use Ring products at more than one address, you’ll need to pay for multiple plans.

Like the Basic plan, Ring Protect Plus gives you 60 days of video history, but it also extends the warranty on each of your Ring products for as long as you have a subscription. In addition, you get professional monitoring for Ring’s Alarm security system and a 10% discount on all Ring products purchased directly from Ring’s site.

Also important to note: There’s no contract required with any Ring Protect or Ring Protect Plus plan so that you can switch back to a free account at any time.

Put a Ring on it

Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 Smart Wi-Fi Video Doorbell

$250 at Amazon $250 at Best Buy

The best Ring doorbell you can buy

Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 isn’t just another spec upgrade. This tiny video doorbell can see more of your front porch thanks to head-to-toe video, and the brand-new radar-powered 3D motion detection can pinpoint on a map exactly where motion was seen. If that’s not enough, Alexa is built-in and can answer a doorbell button press for you. Now that’s more than just a doorbell.