My house has never had a doorbell. This alone makes me a good candidate for the $179 Ring Video Doorbell, which uses home Wi-Fi to transmit the sound of a doorbell chime directly to smartphones, as well as to Ring's $30 wall-mounted Chime accessory. But there's a deeper reason why I wanted to test Ring: It's got intriguing home-security features that could discourage the crooks who've been targeting my neighborhood in a series of daytime robberies. Burglars typically start these capers by ringing the doorbell to determine if anyone's home. The Ring Video Doorbell, thanks to its built-in video camera with two-way communication, directly addresses this nefarious use case by making the bad guys think you're always at home.

Like most other smart doorbells, Ring lets you see who's at your door and interact with your guests before letting them in. Unlike its competition, however, Ring doesn't require dedicated electrical wiring; instead, it can work off of rechargeable battery power. Since our test home doesn't have built-in doorbell wiring, we chose the wireless installation option. Unfortunately, despite the freedom it offered, we still didn't have a lot of placement options for the Ring. The former was too thin to serve as an adequate base, while the latter were too short to accommodate the Ring's entire length.