The other week a courier rang our doorbell to drop off a package. My wife was at work, and I was in New York, but I was still able to speak to the courier through our Ring Video Doorbell 2.

It was a bizarre experience, using my phone to chat across the planet — through a speaker in my doorbell — to organise a later drop off time. Last Sunday our doorbell rang again; this time it was a pair of strangers, hoping to discuss religion or pay tv subscriptions, and we were able to ask them politely to leave without getting out of bed.

The Ring Video Doorbell 2 (around $300) is a great little unit; easy to install with a crisp, clear image that you can monitor at any time. Like most connected security cameras, you can also turn on motion detection to receive alerts whenever something crosses in front of the camera. And like most of these cameras, the motion detection is incredibly sensitive, so you’ll want to test the alerts and limit the reach of the detection area, or every passing car will set it off.

We’ve paired it with a Ring Spotlight (another $300) which, as the name suggests, includes a flood light and optionally deafening alarm you can trigger if someone enters your property. The Spotlight has a massive field of view — the 140 degree angle covers our entire street frontage — but thankfully you can set the motion detection zones independently to the field of vision.