The Short Story — Great idea, poor execution. It’s been two years, and they’re far from even having a working prototype. Here’s a Facebook group for those who’re wishing to get a refund.
Smart home hubs have gotten more and more advanced as time has gone on, and over the past few years, we’ve started to see different combinations of technology implemented that serve to improve the abilities of your connected home. While the primary purpose is to allow smart home tech to communicate with one another, create different triggers, and customize setups, multiple companies have shown us that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to smart hubs.
Whether it’s the Echo Plus (a Zigbee hub with Amazon Alexa built in) or something as advanced as the Symbio by Toshiba (6-in-1 device with Z-Wave, Zigbee, and WiFi support), these hubs are smarter than ever before — and The Moon by 1-Ring is no exception.
Our comprehensive Moon by 1-Ring review is detailed below, so let’s dive into what makes this all-in-one smart home hub and camera so special.
Moon by 1-Ring — Features
The moment you look at the Moon, you can tell that it has something special — namely the stabilized 360-degree levitation technology that allows the security camera to float over the base. If that high-tech camera wasn’t enough, the hub portion is fully-featured and allows for easy integration of modern smart home products and legacy devices alike into your personal Internet of Things.
Let’s talk a little bit more about the camera. The levitation factor does more than just look cool, providing a noiseless, jerk-free and heavily-controllable float like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Unlike cameras that rely on more mechanical parts, the Moon security camera can smoothly rotate without delay in any direction and is charged wirelessly from the base for 24/7 coverage of your home.
1080p HD resolution that films at 30 frames per second should ensure you always have a clear picture of any activity in your home. The 130-degree viewing angle and infrared LED also ensure that you get adequate coverage of the vulnerable parts of your home, during both the day as well as the night.
The hub portion of the Moon by 1-Ring includes Bluetooth Smart 4.2 capabilities, as well as ZigBee 3.0, Z-Wave Plus, NFC, and even an IR blaster. While the flashiest part of the Moon is that unique floating camera, the base also has technology that sets it apart from the competition.
Whether you’re controlling your Philips Hue lights or creating custom applets through IFTTT integration, your Moon smart home hub will probably be able to do it all.
Moon by 1-Ring — Pros
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- Camera Angle – The 130-degree camera angle is pretty standard for smart cameras. It’s wide enough to zero-in on any activity and provide you a clear picture of any intruder’s face. Since your camera, in this case, is isolated to the hub, it’s especially important that it can cover a lot of distance on its own — and the Moon doesn’t disappoint on that front.
- No Hidden Fees – Once you’ve purchased the Moon by 1-Ring, that’s all you have to worry about. There are no ongoing subscriptions whatsoever — just pay once and enjoy all the features that the security camera and smart home hub have to offer without any additional fees.
- Cloud Storage of Your Choice – The Moon offers the option of storing footage on a microSD card in the device itself, but it also offers the ability to upload video to the cloud drive of your choice. There are a variety of options, ranging from Dropbox to Google Drive, OneDrive or even your own FTP server. With everything moving online these days, chances are that you have some sort of cloud storage solution as is. Being able to take advantage of that existing service rather than shelling out for dedicated storage from 1-Ring is a definite plus.
- Integrated IR Blaster – There are a variety of connections that the Moon supports, ranging from Bluetooth to Zigbee and Z-Wave, to WiFi and more. What is most unique about the smart hub capabilities, however, is the inclusion of an Infrared IR blaster as well. This means you’ll be able to easily control your TV and speakers right from the smart home hub and easily integrate a lot of more traditional electronic equipment into the rest of your connected home.
- Dual Band – The Moon is a dual-band system, which means that it supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections. Even if you have an older router, you shouldn’t have an issue with support. However, we strongly recommend using a 5GHz connection in order to reduce interference and performance. Check out our collection of Smart Home WiFi Systems for some tips on top models!
- Voice Assistants – The Moon works will all three major voice controllers — Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri. The flexibility allows you to use whatever system you’re most comfortable with, which is especially nice for those of us with existing smart home tech that already works off of one of the three. You’ll be able to control your smart devices and camera without even pulling out an app with just simple voice commands.
- Simple Control From One Device – Part of the appeal of a smart hub is connecting all of your devices and letting them interact with one another, and the Moon does all that and provides a central app to control and customize all your smart home appliances.
The app also controls the security of your home, with the easily customizable Guard Mode that allows you to keep both your home and office safe through the integration of a home alarm. You can also use the built-in Presence Simulation tool in order to prompt your Moon hub to occasionally switch on lights and other devices throughout your home in a realistic pattern — giving the appearance of being in the house while you’re out and about or on vacation.
So whether you’re looking for simple smart home control or a central hub for a security system, the Moon has you covered.
- Flexible Charging Options – The levitating camera will charge wirelessly, so you shouldn’t have to worry about plugging it in as long as you have your base hooked up to power. If you take the camera with you on the go, you can use the USB port for continuous charging, and if there’s no power supply around you can actually use your system for up to 5 hours without plugging it in.
While we don’t really see a ton of situations where you’d want to move your Moon from its position guarding and controlling your home, it’s nice to be able to pick things up and move them around without your smart home coming to a screeching halt.
Moon by 1-Ring — Cons
- Perfect Toy for Pets – One of the main perks of the Moon by 1-Ring is also a major downside: the levitating camera. For those of us without pets, there aren’t really any issues with the design. For those of us with curious cats or dogs, however, the levitating camera can look just like a toy. The good thing is that if the camera survives the fall, you’ll probably finally find out where that Narnia place where your pets hide everything that they think doesn’t belong in its place.
If you’d like to avoid having your camera batted around by a curious kitty, you can activate “Pet Mode” that will disable the levitation and plant the camera squarely on the base, but that’s a little disappointing when the main appeal of the Moon in the first place is the levitation factor.
Simply put, the camera is a little too attractive to pets, and while there are options to address it, it makes the camera feel a whole lot less cool if you do.
- Production TBD – Like many crowdfunded pieces of technology, there was some inherent risk with backing the Moon by 1-Ring. The 2018 March serial production date that was supposed to happen never materialized, and the launch has been postponed to god knows when. There are 4 stages of the development process, concept, prototype, production, and shipping. The Moon is actually only on step number two, which means the company has only produced a working demo of the product rather than a consumer device.
When the campaign first launched, they set a $45,000 fixed crowdfunding goal that they have since far surpassed, reaching $357,122 by December 17th, 2017, but they’ve yet to announced an actual production date. This may be a red flag, and a lot of backers are upset. If we’re going to see the Moon come to market and offer a competitive product to consumers, 1-Ring needs to set realistic deadlines and expectations and ratchet up the transparency around the failures and successes.
Until we know a little bit more about when the hub and camera duo will actually launch, we advise approaching the purchasing decision with some degree of caution. Since you can’t currently get your hands on the camera, there’s always the possibility the whole plan could go up in flames.
Moon by 1-Ring — Camera Price
If the Moon actually comes to fruition, it will offer a wide range of features at an expensive, but ultimately pretty competitive price. You can currently pre-order the floating cam through the company’s Indiegogo campaign, and you’ll receive a 32% discount for pre-ordering, with shipping anywhere in the world. The retail price of the Moon is $330, but considering that you’re getting a floating camera we feel that that’s pretty accessible. When you factor in the discount, you’re getting the device for $224 which is pretty reasonable considering you’re getting both a smart home hub and camera system all in one. That price converts to roughly £172 and AU$317.
Moon by 1-Ring — Our Thoughts
The Moon has long past its anticipated delivery date and it actually feels that the product is dying off. The specs looked pretty solid for a camera / smart home hub duo two years ago, but with all the new devices now, the Moon doesn’t look nearly as impressive. The only thing it can really add to your home is a futuristic vibe — fitting in especially well with modern decor.
Moon by 1-Ring hasn’t met a single estimated shipping deadline, and the latest updates on a product don’t give much hope, so we certainly can’t recommend ordering the Moon on Indiegogo. They were offering something truly unique to an industry that tends to offer a lot of the same features and were creating a high-quality and interesting product, but they have been failing to meet shipment expectations for over a year now. They definitely need to be a bit more down to Earth with their timeline.
If you have existing Nest or Arlo cameras, you definitely don’t need the Moon (no matter how cool that floating camera may be!)
So to wrap up our Moon by 1-Ring review, we feel that it was an excellent option that fell short. However, if you’re looking to get your home set up with a smart hub, we recommend checking out our take on SmartThings v2 vs. v3.
Last update on 2024-04-23 at 23:22 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
I wouldn’t waste my money I did I pre-ordered Nov 2017 and learned a lesson the only thing your gonna get is an excuse blows my mind how there still selling the same 4units at the same price….. It’s just a scam …..Guy