After years of making video doorbells and outdoor home security cameras, Ring has finally released a purpose-built camera for inside the walls of your home. The $59.99 Indoor Cam has many of the same features as Ring’s outdoor cameras, such as motion detection, two-way audio, and 1080p recording, but it’s smaller and less expensive. If you’re already a Ring customer, it’s an easy addition to your setup if you’re looking for a camera for inside your home that will integrate with the same app and cloud services you’re already using. But if you’re not already a Ring customer, there are even less expensive options that work just as well for an indoor security camera.

The Indoor Cam’s design is similar to Ring’s Stick Up Cam, just smaller. The Indoor Cam doesn’t have the Stick Up Cam’s battery or weather sealing; it has to be plugged into an outlet to function, and it isn’t designed to be used outdoors at all. As a result, it takes up much less space on a shelf or mounted on a wall. The included base can be positioned on the bottom or the back of the camera providing the same amount of mounting options as Ring’s other cameras.

Like the Stick Up Cam, the Indoor Cam can record 1080p video clips with audio, it has infrared sensors for low-light video, and it has adjustable motion detection zones. It supports two-way audio so you can speak to someone facing the camera through the Ring app on your phone, and the lens as a wide, 140-degree field of view. The night mode has both traditional black and white and color options.

The Indoor Cam can be accessed through the Ring app at any time for a live feed, but it will also record clips when it detects a motion event. This can be configured with adjustable sensitivity and range or disabled entirely. Similarly, the audio recording can be disabled.

Using the Indoor Cam is much like using any other indoor home security camera: you plug it in, set it up on your Wi-Fi network through the Ring app, and then access the video clips and live stream from your phone. Out of the box, the Indoor Cam will only offer live-streaming. To access recorded clips, you’ll need to pay for a Ring Protect plan, which starts at $3 per month and provides a rolling 60-day archive of recorded clips. If you’re already paying for Ring’s Protect Plus plan at $10 per month for other Ring cameras, you can add as many Indoor Cams to it as you like for no additional monthly charge.

Video quality is on par with other indoor cameras, which means it’s perfectly fine for seeing what’s going on inside your home when you’re not there. The ability to have night clips in color is nice, but it’s not a totally necessary function, and you can disable it if you find it isn’t working well. The two-way audio works like other security cameras, too: it’s kind of squawky and doesn’t sound particularly great, but voices are clear and audible. I don’t think Ring will be adding the ability to use the Indoor Cam as an Alexa speaker (despite being owned by Amazon) due to the speaker’s limitations, however.

If you already have a Ring video doorbell and perhaps other Ring cameras outside of your home, the Indoor Cam is an easy and cheap way to add monitoring to the interior of your home, and it will integrate with the cloud services you’re likely already paying for. But if you don’t already have a Ring system and are just looking for a simple Wi-Fi-connected camera to put inside your home, then other brands, such as Wyze, offer many of the same features for less than half of the Indoor Cam’s price.

Photography by Dan Seifert / The Verge

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