Dad Meets Daughter’s First Date Using Ring Doorbell When He Was Away from Home

When Pedro Lugo's daughter Grace told him she was going out on a date, his first reaction was, "No you're not."

"I had to be at work, so I wasn't going to be there to talk to him," he said, adding that it was going to be his 19-year-old daughter's first date.

Then, he remembered the Ring Video Doorbell on his front porch and had an idea. "I said, 'Make sure he rings the doorbell,' but I didn't tell her why. She had no idea I was going to interrogate him the way I did."

And for several minutes, Pedro did indeed grill his daughter's date Jared using the Two-Way Talk feature on his Ring Video Doorbell, asking where they were going, what movie they were going to see, and when he planned to have her home (Pedro repeatedly reminded him of a 10:30 p.m. curfew).

"I got to see his face," Pedro said. "[The Ring Video Doorbell] definitely made me feel safer.”

Pedro lives in Malden, Massachusetts, with his wife and four children. He said they bought the Ring Video Doorbell in January after eyeing a doorbell camera for quite awhile. He takes full advantage of the Ring App, since he works two jobs and is gone from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. every day.

"Whenever I have an alert on my phone, I'm always on my Ring App," he said. "It's also good because you can see what's going on around your neighborhood."

He's an avid user of the Neighbors feature of the Ring App, which lets community members share real-time crime and safety alerts and view a crime map showing nearby incidents from around their neighborhoods.

"I'm always on it seeing what the neighbors are up to, what they post." he said. 

Because his kids are home alone at times, he said being able to check in remotely, use the two-way talk feature of the Ring Video Doorbell, and see what's happening in the neighborhood gives him peace of mind. For more home security, he's planning to get a Ring Cam for his back porch as well.

As for his daughter's date, Grace was home at 10:18 p.m. that night, Pedro said, well before the 10:30 p.m. curfew that he'd emphasized during the Ring Doorbell conversation with Jared. And, while Grace said Jared was a bit nervous after that first talk, it didn't stop him from asking her out again. He took her on another date the next day — to her first Red Sox game, Pedro said.

And Pedro eventually got to meet Jared in person. He came over the next week for a face-to-face talk.

"He's a very respectful kid," Pedro said. "And he told me he kept looking at his watch the whole time during that first date to make sure he got her home before 10:30."

Like Pedro, be #AlwaysHome by setting up your own Ring Video Doorbell today.

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