When I moved into my current house, it had a vintage central intercom system, with yellowed plastic intdoor speakers, yellowed plastic outdoor speakers, and an archaic esthetic. We immediately pulled out the system components, drywalled over the cutouts in the interior walls, and I was left with two very ugly metal boxes in the brick at my front and back door.
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| Completed installation - Ring Pro Video Doorbell with Aluminum Adapter Plate over vintage Nutone Intercom Box |
A bit of research lead me to the Wifi enabled video doorbells - very simple, they connect to your Wifi router, and ring your smartphone and interior door chime whenever someone rings at the door, and provides live video of the person at the door. In addition, you can use the internal speaker and microphone to speak with the person at your door - even from a distance away from your home.
The Ring Pro is the smallest of the Ring family, the Ring V2 with the removable battery is the largest, and the original Ring is slightly smaller than the Ring V2. The are the three Ring models that are suitable for retrofit applications such as installing over an old Nutone installation. The Ring Elite requires power over ethernet (a Cat5 or Cat6 ethernet cable at your front door) and a standard electrical box - most retrofit applications will be difficult for the Ring Elite.
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| Left to Right: Ring Pro, Ring V2, Original Ring |
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| Left to Right: Ring Pro, Ring V2, Original Ring |
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| Vintage Nutone Door Speaker and Connection Box - Don't forget to cut the power to your doorbell circuit before working with these wires.Unscrew, Remove the Wires |
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| A Nutone Intercom Connection Box is 4 3/8" Wide and made of Steel |
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| A Nutone Intercom Connection Box is 5 7/8" Tall |
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| Nutone Intercom Box - can be identified by the Model IR-6 label. |
The first step was removing the old Nutone intercom speaker. 2 screws, and I took note that the orange pair of wires in my installation was used for the 17VAC doorbell switch circuit. By connecting the Ring Pro Video Doorbell to your existing doorbell switch wires powered by an internal transformer, the Ring Pro will keep itself charged, and pressing the button on the Ring Pro will sound the doorbell in your house. Something to note here however - the Ring Pro will not ring the door chime if you have kept your indoor intercom speaker system - you also have to retrofit a normal door chime in your house.
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| I started by making a blank cover plate to fit over the old intercom connection box, countersinking the holes for the screws for a neat installation using a metal punch. |
The Ring Pro is smaller and more compact than the Nutone Speaker unit. This caused an issue in my installation because the Nutone was installed in a custom installation box - set into my masonry. I decided to create an aluminum cover plate to hide the old box, and create a flat surface for installing the Ring Pro.
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| I then removed the cover plate - and marked the Ring Pro adapter plate holes on the Aluminum Adapter plate, and used a center punch to mark the hole centers for accurate drilling. |
The Ring Pro Video Doorbell adapter plate is smaller than the Nutone Speaker installation Box, so an adapter plate is required. I cut a rectangle 4 3/8" wide by 5 7/8" tall to cover the old Nutone connection box in the wall. (UPDATE - I sell these aluminum plates for sale on eBay in various colors due to popular request from this blog posting - at this
link to eBay item number 172999956386.)
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| Wiring hole with grommet, and attachment holes drilled in the Aluminum Adapter plate |
Just below where the doorbell wires will attach to the back of the Ring Pro, I punched an 8mm hole to fit a 6mm (1/4") grommet, to protect the intercom wires from the sharp edges of the Aluminum adapter plate.
I then reinstalled the Aluminum Adapter Plate over the old Nutone Intercom connection box, isolated the correct pair of wires running downstairs to the transformer, and...
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| Adapter plate installed, ready for installation of the Ring Pro. Note the top hole serves double duty - attaching both the Ring Pro to the plate and Nutone Box, and below - there are two holes - one for attaching the aluminum plate to the Nutone Box, and one for the bottom attachment screw - Ring Pro to the aluminum plate. |
From this point it was relatively simple to install the Ring Pro. Just clip the Ring Pro onto the Ring Pro installation plate, snap down and tighten the hold down screw at the bottom of the doorbell.
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| Connect the wires to the back of the Ring Pro |
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| The Ring Pro Video Doorbell installed. Now it's time to reconnect the power... |
On the inside - you need to install the Ring Pro Power Kit within your existing doorbell chime. I had removed the old Nutone Intercom System, including the Nutone door chime - and installed a simple Honeywell direct wired doorbell chime.
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| This is what the Ring Pro Power Kit looks like - the wires have little tags indicating how to connect them to the connections inside your door chime. |
It was simple to remove the cover and install the Ring Pro Power Kit following the instructions provided in the box.
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| Ring Pro Power Kit installed - with this chime - there was lots of room to install the power kit because it had spaces for battery installation - which was empty. I just tidied up the wires and replaced the cover. |
Now that all was installed, it was time to reconnect the power to the Ring Pro by turning the breaker back on for the doorbell transformer. Once you reconnect power, the Ring Pro will "speak" recorded audio configuration instructions, and the ring around the doorbell button will circle in white light.
Now is the time to install the Ring Pro app on your smartphone, and run through the Wifi configuration sequence. That's pretty simple, just follow the sequence on your app until all is installed.
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| Ring Pro Intalled and configured - with the solid white light around the doorbell button glowing, and the silver trim plate installed. |
Once configured, you can test the doorbell button. You normal doorbell should sound inside the house, plus you'll hear the distinctive chime of the Ring Pro Video Doorbell. Some have complained that the Ring Pro may have a hard time reaching a good wifi signal when installed at your front door - this hasn't been the case in my installation - I've got a great signal.
With the Ring Pro app installed on your smartphone and/or tablet- ringing the Ring Pro doorbell switch initiates a video call with your smartphone or tablet. On the smartphone you get a notification on the home screen, and the video application launches so that you can see who is at your front door. You can decide whether to accept or reject a call to talk to whoever is at the front door - and this feature is available anywhere you have internet connection with your smartphone or tablet. Very cool.
I also have a Ring Video Doorbell installed at the front of the house, and have tried out a few different Ring Video Doorbell models. If I get a bit of spare time, I'll do a quick post comparing the various. Wifi doorbells that I've tested. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions.
Sources and Links
I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. I have started manufacturing blank and pre-drilled retrofit kits for the Ring Pro Video doorbell to popular intercom rough-ins and electrical boxes.
Click here to purchase a prefabricated aluminum adapter plate for the Ring Pro Video Doorbell on eBay.
New option - purchase a prefabricated aluminum adapter plate for the Ring Pro Video Doorbell on eBay for the single gang standard North American electrical box.
