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Ring’s second-generation Alarm system has a sleek new design

Published Apr 9th, 2020 5:45PM EDT
Ring Alarm second generation
Image: Ring

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  • Ring announced the all new Alarm on Thursday — its second-generation home security system with an improved design, new features, and sleeker hardware than the previous model.
  • There are 5-piece, 10-piece, and 14-piece Alarm Security Kits you can choose from depending on the size of your home and the amount of money you want to spend.
  • Preorders for the second-gen Ring Alarm are open as of Thursday afternoon.
  • Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories.

Ring, which was purchased by Amazon for $1 billion in February 2018, announced the second generation of its home security system on Thursday. The device that you see in the image at the top of this article is the updated Ring Alarm Keypad, which features a completely new design and one-touch buttons that allow you to quickly request the police, the fire department, or medical assistance in your area with a single tap.

Ring also updated the Motion Detectors and Contact Sensors that ship with the kit to be smaller and easier to mount in any room of your home, and where the old hardware was a shiny plastic, the devices that ship with the new alarm kit have a matte finish that will likely blend in better with the surfaces you place them on.

While the new Ring Alarm will send notifications to the app on your phone if it detects anything unusual, you will have to subscribe to Ring Protect Plus (which costs $10 per month or $100 per year) if you want access to the emergency response tools when someone breaks into your home. Both the Basic and Plus plans offer a 60-day video history, a Snapshot Capture feature, and the ability to download videos on your mobile device.

If you want a Ring Alarm to protect your home, there are three options: a 5-piece kit, a 10-piece kit, and a 14-piece kit. For $199, the 5-piece security kit will net you a Base Station, Keypad, Contact Sensor, Motion Detector, and Range Extender. Ring says that this is a good starter kit for an apartment or a small home. The 10-piece kit costs $249 and adds 4 Contact Sensors and 1 Motion Detector, while the $329 14-piece kit adds another Keypad and 3 more Contact Sensors on top of that — ideal for a house with 3 or more bedrooms.

Preorders for the second-generation Ring Alarm kicked off on Thursday, and if you buy a kit on Amazon, you can get a free Echo Dot with your order that you can use to control the system with your voice. Ring will no longer sell the original Alarm on its website, but you can still find it through third-party retailers.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.