Meet Maggie, PCMag'sIt’s been years since I reviewed the first Ring Spotlight Cam Battery, which earned high marks for its easy installation, sharp video, and loud siren. Its successor, the Spotlight Cam 2K, took eight years to arrive, but it brings a significant upgrade with 2K video and several smart features. As with all Ring cameras, you have to subscribe to a Ring Protect plan to access recorded video and to unlock most features, but at $169.99, it’s a good value and a worthy addition to any Ring ecosystem. If you’re not a Ring user or want to monitor a large yard, the $209.99 Reolink Altas PT Ultra offers mechanical pan and tilt, local storage, and 4K video, earning it our Editors’ Choice award for wireless outdoor security cameras.
The Ring Spotlight Cam 2K comes in black or white, measures 4.8 by 3.1 by 3.2 inches (HWD), and has an IP65 weatherproof rating, which means it can be used indoors and outdoors. There are two LED strips on either side of the enclosure that emit 550 lumens at a 3,000K color temperature, and the face houses a camera lens, a microphone, a speaker, an LED status indicator, and a pair of IR LEDs for black-and-white night vision.
There’s a Setup button on the top of the camera, a USB-C port on the back for wired power or for use with an optional solar panel, and a removable cover on the bottom that hides two battery compartments. The camera ships with one rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and if you pick up a second battery ($34.99), it will automatically switch over when the first runs out of juice. Also around back are two mounting holes (one straight, one angled) for use with the included mounting bracket.
The camera is a major upgrade over the original 1080p model. The 2K lens has a 2,560-by-1,440 video resolution, a 16:9 aspect ratio, a 140-degree horizontal field of view, and a 6x digital zoom. It will capture color video in low light or when the spotlights are illuminated, and it will default to black-and-white night vision if the ambient light is inadequate. You can configure the lights to come on when motion is detected or at a specific time of day. A built-in 85dB siren can be used along with the spotlights to scare off unwanted visitors.
The camera uses a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio to connect to your home network and works with Alexa and IFTTT applets, but it doesn’t integrate with Apple HomeKit or Google Home. It’ll record video when motion is detected, but you’ll have to subscribe to a Ring Protect plan to view it and to unlock several features. With the Reolink Altas PT Ultra, you must provide your own microSD card (up to 512GB) for video storage, which avoids ongoing cloud fees.
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The $4.99 per month ($49.99 per year) Ring Protect Solo plan supports one camera and gives you up to 180 days of video history, Smart Alerts (for people, packages, vehicles), Extended Live View (up to 30 minutes), and Device Modes (remote arm and disarm).
The $9.99 per month ($99.99 per year) Multi plan gives you everything from the Solo tier, with support for all of your Ring cameras, and it adds extended warranty coverage. The Ring Pro plan, which costs $19.99 per month ($199.99 per year), includes everything in the Multi plan and adds several features, including Video Description, Familiar Faces, Video Search, and 24/7 professional monitoring. The $ 99.99-per-month Virtual Security Guard plan includes everything in the Pro plan, plus Live Monitoring, active theft deterrence, and verified emergency response to avoid false alarms.
The Spotlight Cam 2K uses the same Ring mobile app as every other Ring device and appears on the dashboard screen in its own panel, along with any other Ring devices you have installed. The panel displays the camera name, the most recent captured image, and a button with three dots that, when pressed, opens a screen where you can control motion alerts, lights, and the siren. Here you can also access the camera settings screen.
Tap the panel to open a screen where you can view a live stream and a timeline of recorded events. Here you can search for specific events by description or date and share videos with other users. You can view the live stream in full (landscape) mode by turning your phone sideways or by tapping the arrows in the lower-right corner.
The settings screen contains buttons for controlling the lights, motion detection, and motion alerts. It also contains buttons to activate the siren and switch to a live view. The bottom half of the screen has tiles for various settings. Tap the Event History tile to view a list of recorded events with thumbnails and a video description, and tap the Mode Settings tile to configure Home, Away, and Disarmed settings.
The Device Schedules tile opens a screen where you can create motion schedules, and the Alert Settings tile lets you enable and configure features such as Video Descriptions, Familiar Faces, Single Event Alerts (combines similar events into a single notification), Unusual Event Alerts (provides notifications for unusual activity only), and Smart Alerts. There’s also a tile that lets you snooze alerts for up to 12 hours. Other tiles let you check device health, link the camera to other Ring devices, share access with other users, and configure motion settings and device settings for lights, video quality, privacy, audio, and power management.
With no wires to deal with, installing the Spotlight Cam 2K is fast and easy. I already had the Ring app (available for Android and iOS) installed, so I tapped the three lines in the upper-left corner of the dashboard screen, tapped Set Up a Device, and used my phone's camera to scan the QR code on the back of the camera. Once the app recognized the device, I added it to my home location, tapped Continue, and gave it a name.
I selected a power source (battery) and followed the instructions to remove the battery cover, insert a fully charged battery, and replace the cover. When I heard the tone and the LED began flashing blue, I tapped Continue, and the voice assistant told me that the camera was now connected to the Ring app. I entered my Wi-Fi credentials, and the camera immediately connected to my Wi-Fi network. I tapped Continue, waited a minute or two for the firmware update to complete, and skipped the installation tutorial. I brought the camera outside and mounted it to a spot near my front door to complete the installation.
In testing, the Spotlight Cam’s 2K video was very sharp and showed excellent color saturation. It did a good job of delivering decent color video at night, although color saturation was not as high as during the day. Black-and-white night video was also sharp and showed good contrast.
Motion alerts were accurate and arrived instantly. The Familiar Faces feature worked as intended, and Video Descriptions were spot-on. I did a Video Search for all events that included a gray cat, and it worked like a charm, serving up only captured events featuring our neighborhood kitty, who likes to stretch out on my front walkway.
The camera had no trouble responding to Alexa voice commands to stream video to an Amazon Echo Show smart display, and my Alexa routine to have a TP-Link Tapo L535E smart bulb turn red when the camera detected motion worked flawlessly. I could hear the siren throughout my one-story home, and two-way communication was loud and clear.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: John R. Delaney)
Ring Spotlight Cam 2K
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
With the Ring Spotlight Cam 2K, you can monitor the outside of your home in crysal-clear detail. It uses two bright LED spotlights to light up the night and has a relatively loud siren to scare off intruders. Additionally, you can power the camera using the included battery pack, with an optional USB-C power adapter, or with an optional solar panel. It's easy to recommend to existing Ring users, but for everyone else, the Reolink Altas PT Ultra offers mechanical pan-and-tilt movement for a 355-degree view, stunning 4K video, and both cloud and local storage options, so it remains our Editors' Choice winner.
SHOULD I UPGRADE?
While both models share an easy installation, reliable motion alerts, and bright LED lighting, upgrading to the Spotlight Cam 2K is worth it if you want significantly sharper video, superior digital zoom, and Ring's newer smart search features.
About Our Expert
I’ve been working with computers for ages, starting with a multi-year stint in purchasing for a major IBM reseller in New York City before eventually landing at PCMag (back when it was still in print as PC Magazine). I spent more than 14 years on staff, most recently as the director of operations for PC Labs, before hitting the freelance circuit as a contributing editor.
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