Review: Ring Car Cam

I never accept a product for review with the assumption that I won’t be able to use it. Although we have misgivings about Ring and its partnership with law enforcement, I have generally found its products to be easy to use and serve the purpose for which they are intended, which is to help keep you and your family safer.

With that in mind, let me say that Ring’s Car Cam does not fulfill the intended purpose of a dash cam. Cars are preposterously expensive pieces of property we leave sitting around, unattended, outside. I would love to have stored video footage of a hit-and-run that took my car out of commission for a month last year, or to have gotten an alert when someone broke into my car at night while it was parked in my driveway.

Alas, the Car Cam just doesn’t work that way. The first day I had it installed, the Ring app told me the camera had drained my car battery. I flew downstairs in my pajamas and unplugged it at once. A camera that doesn’t help keep your car safe and also renders it unusable isn’t worth having at all.

Photograph: Ring

But first, the installation. The Car Cam itself feels relatively sturdy—it has dual cameras, one front-facing and one rear-facing, mounted on a curving wedge you stick in the space between the dashboard and the windshield. One of the main reasons Ring cameras are so ubiquitous is that installation can be remarkably easy. The first hint that all was not well here was when the company asked me for the make, model, and year of my car.

The Car Cam plugs into the OBD-II port on the left-hand side of your vehicle, so if your car doesn’t have the port there, you might not be able to use it. You can check the list of incompatible cars here. The incompatibilities might not always be obvious. For example, I have a 2018 Kia Sorento, but the Kia Niro and Cadenza from the same date range are incompatible because the a security light causes false motion events.

Second, it is—and I am sorry, coppers—illegal for me to use the Car Cam at all. In Oregon where I live, and indeed in several states, you’re not allowed to place anything on the windshield or other windows that might obstruct your view or prevent other people from seeing in. I installed it anyway, but if I had gotten pulled over, I would’ve sent WIRED an expense report for my ticket.

So let’s say you still decide to use it. In the box, Ring includes the tools to push it into the barely imperceptible crack between your windshield and your dashboard. I perused online reviews before doing so—apparently some folks have cracked their windshields in the process.

The process was puzzling. The USB port is on the right side of the camera, but Ring specifically states that the camera is to be used in cars with the OBD-II port on the left-hand side. Why is the USB port on the wrong side? You don’t have any choice except to kink the cable when you’re threading it through. You can see the little kink under your windshield, and it makes it easier for the wire to pop out and come loose.

When the camera is plugged into the OBD-II port, the port cover doesn’t fit on top of the plug. So to use the camera, I have to leave my car’s electronics exposed to the elements, which is disconcerting. As I surveyed my work and watched the blue light blink on, I couldn’t help but think about how easy it would be for someone who didn’t want to be surveilled to just break my driver side window and grab it.

Photograph: Ring

Here is where the real fun began. First off, if the car isn’t running for a period of time—like, an hour—the Car Cam turns itself off. This defeats one of the reasons I wanted it, which is to monitor for break-ins when the car is parked in my driveway overnight.

You can tinker with how much power the camera consumes in the app. I changed the setting to Low, which is for cars that are driven infrequently and for batteries that are older than three years. High uses more power. The Car Cam won’t turn itself off as quickly, but you’ll need to drive more often to keep it charged. (There’s a Medium option too.)

Ring does note that ideally you’d drive your car at highway speeds at least once a day to fully recharge your battery. I don’t live near a highway, and I rarely drive over 40 miles per hour. My car battery is older than three years, but I haven’t had any other issues. My check engine light isn’t even on.

I installed the Car Cam around lunchtime. By 11 pm that night, the Ring app pinged me that my car battery was on the verge of being drained completely, so I ran out and unplugged it.

Having an unplugged Car Cam gave rise to another problem. You can only access the videos if the Car Cam is on. If it’s unplugged, you can’t see any of the videos in the app, even to look at the event history. I had to walk out of my house, sit in my car, turn it on, plug the Car Cam back in, and scroll on my phone. It's a difficult process to replicate with an insurance adjuster.

As far as the camera view goes, the interior field of view is decent. It encompasses the entire breadth of my car, and I can clearly see my children in the backseat. Motion notifications seemed accurate. When the Car Cam is briefly on while the car is stationary, I only get notified when my family is getting in and out of the car, never for the mail carrier on the sidewalk or the neighborhood cat that likes to bug my dog. However, the front view camera is lacking. It's too blurry to make out license plates, even when I pulled up about 6 feet behind my other car. That defeats another reason to have a dash cam, which is to record information in case of an accident.

Finally, you can technically use the Car Cam without a subscription, but if you want to be able to access certain features—like, say, watching your video over LTE and storing Live View events or the beginning of Motion events in the cloud—you have to subscribe to Ring Protect Go for $6 per month.

There are two specific use cases I can see the Car Cam being useful. The first is if you’re a rideshare driver. Your car is frequently running at highway speeds, and you have a way to make sure your customers don’t try to assault you. However, in my state it’s illegal to record people speaking without their consent, so most of the time the Car Cam’s privacy shutters would have to be on, and you’d have to notify your customers when you start recording. The second case is for law enforcement interactions, but the camera will stop recording if the officers ask you to turn off your car, which they probably will.

I’m not opposed to the use of a dash camera at all. Although I don’t generally have cameras in the interior of my house, I concede that the outdoor space is public. I have a video doorbell so I can check for packages and a garage video camera so I can make sure the trash service actually came. But as far as car cameras go, this one was not it. I can’t imagine paying $250 for a device that doesn’t do anything I want it to do. I’ve never been happier to return anything in my life.