We love Ring Alarm for its simplicity and potential expandability, but until now the range of compatible sensors has been a bit slim and that’s limited its functionality. That’s finally changing as Ring has launched four new sensors and is rolling out support for several smart locks.
Among the new sensors announced at CES is a smoke and carbon monoxide sensor that connects through the Ring Alarm base station and will send an alert to your smartphone when it’s triggered. It costs $35.
Ring
The Ring smoke and carbon monoxide sensor
There’s also a flood and freeze sensor that you install in any location that’s likely to get wet should a pipe burst or something overflow. Alerts are dispatched when the sensor either detects water or registers a freezing temperature. It costs $35.
Ring
The Ring flood and freeze sensor
And Ring has a Dome siren that connects into the Ring base station and flashes a light and sounds an audible alarm when a security event occurs. This could be useful for people who might not hear the Ring base station alarm should something happen. It costs $30.
Dome
The Dome siren
The final new unit is a First Alert smoke and carbon monoxide alarm that will connect via the Ring base station and alert on your smartphone should it detect either a smoke or carbon monoxide danger. It costs $40.
Ring has been promising the new sensors for some time, so their final availability will be good news for Ring Alarm users.
The company said it’s also expanding support for smart locks so that the Ring app can be used to lock and unlock a door, and view the lock status and battery level. That’s a nice inclusion but the support gets much more useful in February when Ring says it will roll out additional functionality so that the Ring Alarm can be set to automatically arm when a smart lock is put into the lock position.
Ring will start selling three smart locks through its online store: the Kwikset Smartcode 888 Touchpad Electronic Deadbolt, the Schlage Connect Smart Z-Wave Deadbolt, and the Yale Real Living Assure Lock SL with Z-Wave Plus.
Ring is promising a further integration later this year with August so the August Smart Lock Pro can be locked and unlocked via the Ring app.
And Ring said it has streamlined the communication between devices so that when the Ring Alarm triggers, all cameras can be set to begin recording even if they don’t detect motion.
That’s a common request from users and it’s good to see Ring adding it.