Floodlight Cam Wired Pro Review – Is the Pro Worth the Upgrade?

For where I live it’s usually advisable that you get someone professional to come in and rewire such units.

I believe I can do some fixtures, but in this instance, the electrician was coming anyway, so why not get him to do it? No need to risk an electrocution event.

The other three units I have are obviously battery-powered or solar-powered. 

This one is Ring Floodlight Cam Pro Wired version.

First impressions of the Ring Floodlight Pro

The Floodlight Cam Wired Pro is the newest model from Amazon/Ring and has also been released with the Floodlight Cam Wired Plus. 

Took me a little while to figure out the difference between the two, which I’ll run through in a minute.

The first thing that really stood out was the price. The Pro was a lot more expensive. I got over this pretty quickly after a shot of caffeine and the sale of the pet turtle (the kids won’t notice…)

When it arrived in the box, I have to say that the box was really not small, this made me feel like I was getting value for money.

It’s not as if they had added excessive packaging to it, it was just quite a big unit. 

When I pulled it out of the box it was a lot larger than I expected. 

The two lights are really quite impressive in size and the camera itself is quite a chunky unit. 

Like all other Ring devices, the unboxing experience is really quite good. There are lots of instructions. 

You get the little cardboard card with all the tools that you need to do the installation, including the screws and the screwdriver itself. And there’s a nice step-by-step manual that will take you through the setup process.

Overall, it’s really quite a straightforward unit. It’s got the base plate and the unit itself, and there’s really not much more to it.

Quick tip for first-time buyers

In the past, when I’ve set up the cameras, In the past, because I’ve had battery-powered units, they’ve been operational from the moment that I opened them up and set them up, that’s before I even installed them.

So I’ve managed to sit at home, get the Ring app open, connect the Stick Up Cam or the Doorbell Cam, and then go and install them after I was happy with their setup.

With the Floodlight Camera Wired Pro, I thought, surely I would need the power to have it powered up to get it going before I actually installed it and got the software going.

At first, I was quite worried that the code was actually on the inside of the unit, which was now screwed into the mounting plate and I was gonna have to disassemble it.

So I had the guy fit it, mount it, and get it into place. And then I went back to the manual, only to find that I needed to scan a small barcode that was on the unit to get it set up on the Ring app.

Rookie mistake.

Turns out the code and scannable code are just on the back of the camera unit at the base, and so I was able to get up on a small ladder, scan that in, and get it connected up.

Whew.

So if you’re installing this or having someone install it, if it’s going to be on a very high platform, you might want to scan the code and ensure that you’ve got the pre-setup done before they power it and wire it in.

What’s the difference between the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro and the Floodlight Cam Wired Plus? 

Well, the difference between the two units isn’t significant, but for some people, it might be important enough to spend the extra money.

There is quite a price jump between the two models and even aesthetically, the size of the lights is slightly different as well.

I went for the Floodlight Wired Cam Pro because I’ve had my other Ring Stick Up Cams for so long and I know how durable and long-lasting they are.

I wanted to get as many features in as possible because I know that it’s gonna take a while before I consider upgrading these units.

As I say, my Ring Stick Up Cams, one of which is exposed to the elements on a daily basis and are near the ocean, which means they’re subjected to a lot of salt water, continue to operate impressively.

So, I have a lot of confidence that this unit will go the distance as well.

Anyway, sorry – back to the differences between the Ring Pro and Ring Plus Cam.

They both have color night vision, which is actually quite a nice feature and adds a lot of detail when you’re looking at things that have been recorded at night, as you’ll see from the photos and videos on this review.

Here are the key differences 

They both have live view and two-way talk, but the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro has the addition of what they are calling Audio+.

1: Audio+

This might just be some marketing fluff, but I’m assuming that there’s something either about the quality of the microphone or the quality of the software processor in the unit that allows for better quality audio. 

I’ve tested it out and I think any audio through small speakers is gonna be subject to some pretty rough noise. And in terms of the inbound audio, it’s definitely quite clear and quite rich, but I’m not sure if it’s that much of a big deal.

2: HDR

They’re both 1080P HD video recorders. The difference with the Pro is that it also has HDR.

To explain, HDR is usually something that is used in photography, where they will layer over three different versions of a file. 

One will be underexposed, one will be correctly exposed, and one will be overexposed.

And this generally leads to richer, higher quality, and more vibrant footage.

Again, if you’re just using this for some basic security, that may not be something that’s important to you.

The two main differences between the Floodlight Cam Wired Plus and the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro is that the Pro also has 3D motion detection with a bird’s eye view and…

3: Enhanced dual-band Wi-Fi

If you’re a little bit concerned about your Wi-Fi range, or you just wanna make sure that you’ve got maximum connectivity, the dual-band might appeal to you.

If you need to find a Wi-Fi range on a different frequency, a 2.4 or a 5 gigahertz that can switch between the two, this might be more of interest to you. 

They are a little but quiet on what dual band is so I’m assuming it 2.4ghz and 5ghz.

4: 3D Motion Detection (Birds Eye View)

The live bird’s eye view, which you’ll see demonstrated in some of the screenshots and videos here is the ability for the camera to detect where on the property exactly the movement is occurring and in what direction. 

Basically, it’s like watching footprints go across a surface or watching from the top down to see the motion that a person or vehicle or any other thing causing movement takes. 

It’s easier to watch the videos to see what I’m talking about. Just below.

You can see the difference and lag that occurs between a fast motion object and a slow walk.

So, essentially, those are the main differences between the Floodlight Cam Wired Plus and the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro from Ring.

Integrating the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro into your existing Ring network

The setup of the unit, as I mentioned, was very easy once I realized where I had to get the unique code from the device to set it up into my existing system. 

Once it’s there, like all other Ring devices, the beauty is that you can integrate it with existing modes that you have, and you can connect the cameras and devices together to work together in the event of any activity on one or more cameras.

What are Ring modes?

If you are new to the Ring ecosystem, modes are essentially a way of reconfiguring settings for your camera system based on what you are doing or where you are. 
It’s really set up to be part of the Ring security system where the three basic modes are standby, home, and away.

Standy

Standby could be where you are home and you don’t want any of the cameras operating either outside or inside the house because you want that privacy and you want to be home.

It’s important to note that even on standby, you can still have your external cameras working with the internal cameras off as well. Or you can have them all off.

Home

Home might be a setting at night that you set where all your external facing cameras are working but any internal cameras are off.

This just gives you a few options based on how you want them to work.

Away

The third option is away, which is where you may have left the house and all cameras are then on and available to detect any motion, intrusion, detection, etc.

These modes are all configurable as you like.

And so the Ring Floodlight Pro can become part of that ecosystem of cameras that you can set to operate differently depending on where you are at any point in time.

These modes can be easily selected from the app and you don’t need to be home to change them.

Ring Camera Screenshots of Settings in the Ring App [Gallery]

Interlinking Ring devices

The Floodlight Cam Wired Pro is also added into your Ring ecosystem allowing you to interlink the devices. 

When I say interlink devices, I just mean that the devices can take actions based on something that has happened to another device. 

For example, if I get motion on the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro at the front of my house, I can say, “Record on all devices at that time.” 

Or I may say, “If I get motion at my front door ring doorbell, then also record video on just the front camera”, or on all four cameras I have or any combination of those.

You can also set it up so that, “If there is motion on X device, then record on the Floodlight Cam Pro with the lights on.” 

Getting too many notifications question marks? 

If you find that you’re getting too many notifications from your cameras, especially the Floodlight Cam Pro, you can very easily mute notifications for a period of time, or you can disable it altogether. 

What’s different in the settings to the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro?

Because the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro is similar to other Ring Floodlight cameras in the past, most of the settings are the same. If you don’t have a Ring camera, I’ll walk you through it.

You can enable the floodlights at any time using your phone. 

You can also set the light to not go off at a certain time.

You can set settings that the whole unit is inactive between certain times of the day, on a schedule, at fixed times. 

And something that I really love is that you can adjust the brightness of the lights themselves. 

I’ve actually lowered the brightness of mine a bit because they are quite powerful. I do look out over a cul-de-sac, but I’m sure that the neighbors don’t need their windows lighting up every time my Ring camera gets a bit excited. 

All the core settings can be disabled at any time – lights, motion, detection, and motion notifications. 

As you can see in the software screenshot, you have immediate access to the siren, and you can switch straight to live view. 

A lot of the other settings on the device are standard across Ring devices, but if you haven’t seen them before I’ll screenshot them here.

You can have a look at the event history on the timeline at any time. This can take mini snapshots through the day to give you a rough timeline.

You can change the mode settings on the unit, which is what we’ve just discussed about the away, home, and standby. 

You can schedule the device. 

You can link other devices as we’ve just discussed. 

You can snooze motion, which is great if you’ve got kids and they’re running around the house all day and you keep getting notifications on your phone. 

You can link it to Ring chimes. I have a Ring chime in the kitchen. And so I can say, “If there’s motion out the front, then make a noise on the link to chime.” 

You can have a look at the device’s health, which gives you information on its connectivity to the network and its Wi-Fi strength. 

You can change the motion settings, which we’ll come back to.

You can change the device settings, which is things like the light brightness, whether you want the lights to be motion activated at all, and you can set a separate motion zone just for the light. 

So, if you don’t want an area to trigger the lights, but you do want that area to trigger the camera, then you can do this with the settings in the system. This is really quite brilliant.

You can also set your light schedules uniquely to this device where they are on or off for certain times of the day. 

For example, if you want them always on between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., you can have that set. 

The color night vision is an option, and if you would like that on, you can have that as a setting in the unit. I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want color night vision on, so I have mine on all the time. 

Also, like other Ring camera devices, you can also set the notification settings to be unique for this device. That means that if there’s motion at the front and your phone makes a chime, you can set that noise to be specific to that camera, so without even looking at your phone you know where the motion is. 

3D motion detection and bird’s eye view

I wanted to come back to this in detail as this is one of the unique things to the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro, the Plus doesn’t have it.

Essentially, it uses map’s data (mapbox although this can be changed) to locate your property.

You then indicate with the pin where on the satellite image your camera is, and from there, you can set the height of how high the camera is off the ground, and in what direction it is facing primarily. 

This then uses the height and camera 3D analysis, almost like a LiDAR scanner, but not, to detect where people are within the map from a bird’s eye view and what direction they are walking. Check out the video and photos for more.

For this to be really effective, the higher the camera is really the better it is because it can get a much better angle to detect the motion of the person in the frame. 

If you get it wrong, you can reset where the unit is and how high it is at any time. 

As it uses Mapbox for the maps, which means that the satellite view on your property might be a little bit blurry when you zoom in on it, but you should be able to see well enough to put a pin on the map to say where the camera is. 

I find the 3D motion to be a little bit hit and miss. I would say that I probably don’t have the camera high enough, but it’s as high as I can get it, which is under the eaves on the front of my home.

If a person or object is moving quite quickly, it has difficulty mapping their path. But if someone is moving quite slowly, it’s very accurate at detecting what direction they have taken. As I’ve illustrated on the two videos, you can see one fast motion and one slow motion walking person has a very big difference. 

On my property, this bird’s eye view is probably a bit unnecessary. I only have the front driveway area, and if you’re coming into the property, I think the camera alone will tell me where you’re going.

I keep it enabled because I think it’s pretty cool, and it’s something that I get to show off to people because I think it’s quite a unique feature for the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro.

Mounting it

When the electrician first came around and opened the box, he said, I’d bought the wrong unit that that unit needed to be mounted against a wall, a vertical wall. But as I showed him with the flexibility that you have in the camera and the lights, you’re able to then rearrange it so that it’s also able to be mounted on a wall or eaves. 

So, unlike the Ring Stick Up Cam, where I had to buy a special bracket to be able to hang it from under the eaves of my house, the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro can be used on a wall or on an eave without needing to have a separate mounting bracket. Awesome!

Once you mount the unit, there really is a lot of flexibility in the lighting and the camera direction. 

There’s good movement left to right and up and down for each. So if you do need to make adjustments after it’s been installed, you should have enough range of motion to alter either each light individually or the camera itself. 

Conclusion

Overall, I am very happy with the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro.

I’m glad I went for the higher price unit, but I’m not sure that I needed it at all. 

If you are really just trying to create some security for a part of your house, then I’m sure that the Plus unit will give you what you need. 

If you like the idea of the Audio+, the dual frequency connectivity, and the 3D motion bird’s eye view feature, then you can certainly spend the extra money as I did to get the higher unit.

One thing’s for sure, I won’t be making a stupid mistake of water blasting this unit to make it clean, and I expect that it will last for many, many years to come.

I like that I can connect it in with my other cameras to create what has really become quite a fortress of cameras around my house. And while I live in a very safe area, I always have peace of mind when I go away knowing that not only is the house more secure, 

I can even just check in on things like a hose popping off a faucet or damage happening in a storm can be detected just by looking at my cameras around the house. 

The only person that really triggers motion on these is when we’re out and our lawn mower guy visits, that’s only once a month.

When we’re home it’s great having the Ring Chime go when people are coming up the driveway – it’s a nice little advance warning.

I could reduce the motion sensitivity to only detect people, but I also want to see when cars are coming up and down the driveway. 

The one negative of this is that I get a lot of cats walking up and down the driveway triggering the unit. 

On one hand, this is annoying, but on the other hand, the accuracy of the camera to pick up such small movements at such a distance gives me confidence in this unit.

If you’ve got any questions, please feel free to file them away in the comments below. 

And let me know if there’s anything else I can show you with the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro. 

Stay safe.

This post was last updated on 2024-11-30 / Some images from Amazon Product API & some links may be affiliate links which may earn us a commission from purchases.