Ring Pan & Tilt Camera review: I can’t believe it doesn’t track motion
It offers comprehensive rotation and movement, but doesn't use that to track movement in your home. It's a missed opportunity.
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Pros
- Simple setup
- Decent video quality
- Spring-loaded privacy cover
Cons
- No motion tracking
- Colour night vision only in low-light, not no light environments
- Requires Ring subscription for recordings
Ring’s Pan & Tilt indoor home security camera looks like it would be the perfect indoor camera. With a manual camera cover for privacy and a design that lets you tilt and swivel the lens in a 360-degree loop, it promises so much.
But for some unknown reason, Ring decided not to include motion tracking in this camera. Although the camera actually moves and rotates, it won’t track movement around the room it’s securing.
In order for the camera to actually change its position, you need to control it manually within the Ring app.
This blows my mind. Ring put radar sensors in some of its cameras to be able to track motion, but when it has a camera that can tilt and pivot, there’s no way to track a subject.
It’s not like the technology doesn’t exist, either. I reviewed the Eufy S350 Indoor Cam last year, and it could track movement pretty well.
If you don’t need motion tracking, the Pan & Tilt does a pretty good job within the Ring ecosystem. But you might as well opt for a cheaper model without the movement for most situations.
What is the Ring Pan & Tilt Camera offering?
The big selling point for the Pan & Tilt camera is that it pans… and tilts. You get 360-degree horizontal rotation, and a 169-degree vertical tilting range.
This means that if you pop this camera in a corner somewhere, you get pretty comprehensive coverage. You can move the view around to see the entirety of a room.
Like most Ring cameras, you get live view with two-way talking, so you can use it as a fairly effective pet camera, letting you talk to your fur baby as they tear apart your couch while you’re out.
There’s a colour night vision mode, motion alerts and advanced pre-roll recording, so you can see what happened in the lead up to the motion alert.
There’s also a privacy cover that slides effortlessly across the camera lens, so you don’t have to worry about being recorded when you’re sitting at home.
At $129 RRP, it’s not the cheapest home security camera available, competing with models like the Blink 2, and the Eufy S350. Especially when you factor in the price of Ring’s subscription, which you’re going to need to keep your recordings.
What does the Ring Pan & Tilt Camera do well?
Ring’s app is simplicity itself. You would expect that, given the brand has built its identity around simple home security products.
Set up and installation is also simple, with the app guiding you through the entire process. You just need to scan the QR code on the back of the camera and follow the steps involved.
The video quality from the camera is good, particularly in daylight. It’s only 1080p, but it has plenty of detail and colour reproduction is pretty good too for a home security camera.
I also found the privacy cover ideal for easily switching the camera off. It feels spring-loaded, so it takes the tiniest bit more effort to close than it does to open, but doing both feels satisfying.
It could be a challenge to open and close if you mount the camera high up on a ceiling, though.
What could the Ring Pan & Tilt Camera improve?
As I said in the introduction, it is mind-boggling there’s no motion tracking in this camera. If somebody breaks into your home and triggers the motion detection, you only have a short pre-roll recording and the moment itself.
Having the camera track people would be a much better approach given how the camera itself moves around. Particularly if you wanted to use this is a pet camera.
Colour night vision is a bit misleading. In low light, you can get colour in your video recordings, but in a really dark environment, you’re looking at infrared footage.
A few home security cameras I’ve tested, like the Swann Xtreem4K wireless, have LED lights that will light up the environment to give you that low-level of light needed for colour footage. The Pan & Tilt doesn’t do this.
That makes sense to me – you don’t want your security camera to light up the room when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, after all. But it also makes the colour night vision something you will rarely – if ever – see.
And while it’s nothing new, the fact you can't store any recordings without the paid subscription is extremely frustrating. Particularly as you have to pay for a more premium tier if you have more than one Ring camera.
Verdict
The Pan & Tilt camera is only $30 more than the standard indoor camera, and offers a pretty big advantage with the ability to move the camera around to shoot exactly what you need to in your home.
But there’s no motion tracking, and that feels like a massive missed opportunity. It actually feels like the function I would consider buying this camera for, and it’s missing.
This is still a good camera, particularly for people already invested in the Ring ecosystem. But it’s not perfect, and you should definitely consider your needs before picking one up.
If you’re after a security or pet camera that records and tracks the indoor actions of your home, this ain’t it, sorry.
