A smart doorbell is an excellent addition to any smart home setup. It’s both a chime and, in many cases, a camera that can send feedback directly to your phone, even if you’re not in your home. Plus, you can install one even if the place you’re living in doesn’t have a traditional doorbell hookup in place. When it comes to smart doorbells, one of the most well-known names is Ring, with products like the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro making an impressive case for all smart doorbell devices.
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One of the major perks of smart doorbells like Ring devices is that you can sync them up to other smart devices in your home, particularly hub and smart speaker devices like those from the Google Home framework. However, it’s important to remember that Ring is a subsidiary of Amazon, and while many connections have been fostered between the two tech giants, Amazon and Google devices don’t always get along. This, unfortunately, leads to a serious hurdle if you try to pair a Ring doorbell with Google Home.
Ring is not compatible with the Google Home ecosystem
Ring doorbells are sadly not compatible with the entire Google Home ecosystem, including both standalone Google Nest speakers and similar devices like the Nest Hub. Apparently, it’s not for lack of trying, either. Ring products appear to have been fully compatible with Google smart home devices at one point. If you search online, there are still many sites that will claim connecting them is as simple as toggling a few options on your smartphone.
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However, based on support discussions between Google and Ring users and help staff from Google and Ring, it seems this is no longer the case. Users report that when trying to add a Ring doorbell to a Google Home ecosystem, the doorbell in question simply doesn’t appear in the list of discoverable devices. Even having the Ring doorbell app installed on your phone won’t do anything to get the devices connected. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this beyond the blanket assumption that there is simply a barrier between the Ring and Google Home systems that won’t allow them to link up.
Ring is part of Amazon’s ecosystem, and works with Fire and Alexa devices
If you can’t connect your Ring doorbell to your Google Home speaker, how are you supposed to actually get notifications from it? After all, not all Ring doorbells produce an audible chime; many rely exclusively on connections to your smartphone or smartphone devices. It can be annoying to have to make substitutions in your current smart home setup, but if you absolutely have to have a Ring doorbell as part of your system, the best course of action is to use a compatible device from the same ecosystem — in other words, Amazon’s ecosystem.
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Amazon-owned and branded devices are designed to work seamlessly with other Amazon devices, including anything from Amazon’s various brands and subsidiaries. Generally, this includes any kind of smart home device with Amazon Alexa integration, which can include a smart home display like the Amazon Echo Show 8 or a smart TV like the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED. Any of these devices can be synced up with a Ring doorbell via the Alexa app on your smartphone. You can also use the voice command “Alexa, discover my devices” to have it search for compatible devices nearby to populate your device list in the Alexa app.
