Ring Security Camera initial thoughts (including App)

NeilF

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So, got my Ring Security Camera (wired) running yesterday. Some thoughts so far:-

Software/Phone App
Thoughts:-
  • VERY URGENT: To review a motion clip means waiting minute(s) for it to be made available to you. So you're notified of motion and you click to Live View and see nothing taking place. So obviously want to review the motion clip, but it does not appear on your list of motion events for approaching 2 minutes... Is my house being broken into? Well, let's wait two minutes to just be able to look at the motion clip. This is unfriendly and frankly bad! The clip should be available (in some form) in seconds, not minutes! Even if they were available immediately, but you couldn't fast forward through them at that time, that would be very useful!
  • URGENT: Motion clips should have a sped up small thumbnail animation against each one in the list, so you can simply decide if you even need to look at it. eg: The thumbnal in the list shows your partner's car arriving on the drive, so you know there's no need to even look at the full video. An alternative would be a small static thumbnail taken from X seconds into the clip (again this might be enough to let you know the cause of motion), and then when you put your finger somewhere on the motion line the thumbnail then animates as described above.
  • MINOR: You should be able to specify where clicking a motion notification takes you. At the moment it always takes you to the camera's Live View. I'd prefer it to go to the the camera's dash so I can click Live View if I wish, or simply click the motion event clip to see the motion that set it off. This is particularly applicable if the above suggestion for animated thumbnails was added. Click the motion notification, go to the camera Dash Board (instead of Live View), and the animated thumbnail alone may be enough for you to realise the cause of the movement. Another option should be that clicking the motion notification takes you to immediately viewing the motion video itself. But as mentioned above there is the issue that these videos are seemingly not available for minute(s), let alone in some form immediately (even if you couldn't fast forward through them).
  • MINOR: When in Live View you can turn the security light on, but not off! You have to exit the Live View and take another option to turn it off. Bizarre! EDIT: This is possible! You can reclick the option to turn off the light.
  • MINOR: Motion Zone configuration creates a Live View clip. ie: When setting up your motion zones, the camera's footage is shown, and you actually end up with a pointess Live View event clip. This is daft. There should be no such clip created, or at least an option to turn it off creating one while definig motion zones. If you go in/out of your Motion Detection zone set up 6 times, you'll end up with 6 (pointless) Live View clips/events.
  • MEDIUM: Having an easy way to turn off notifications (eg: I'm sitting at home) would be useful - An option is buried away per camera, but it would be far better to have a single top level option ("At Home") to do this (ie: turn off notifications for a specified list of cameras). Geo fencing of course would be even better.
Performance
Thoughts:-
  • Even with motion set to its extreme of "People", my small little cat will at times set it off. We need AI type facial/person recognition on these things to cut down on the false alerts. I'm hoping Rings next gen (of Amazon backed) cameras have this!
  • With the clips I was getting yesterday, most of them seem to miss the first few seconds of the motion that I assume set them off being recorded. ie: With someone walking across my drive the clip started with them already 10ft across the drive and almost exiting the field of view. Why does the clip not show the video footage from the true start of the motion, and/or a few seconds prior to it? Note: I specifically got the wired version to ensure more snappy performance. HOWEVER: Today's clips seem to not demonstrate this issue. Indeed the postman arriving was preceded by a good 2-3 seconds of footage. Hopefully this will prove the norm!

Hardware

Thoughts:-
  • Making it wireless only seems a significant mistake. To get a good signal to it, I've had to put a dedicated Wireless Access point literally 1ft away from it on the other side of the garage wall it's mounted on. ie: There's an ethernet connection (via a homeplug) only 3ft away from it! It would have been far easier if I could simply have plugged the camera into an ethernet port (ie: the homeplug). Note: PoE (power of ethernet) wiring system surely would be a more logical approach offering then a wireless or wired solution? A single ethernet cable to either just power it, or power it and offer a wired network.
  • Hardwired/moulded plug. This is utterly daft! It should be possible to unscrew/remove the cable so as to feed it through a 1cm hole, instead of 10cm hole! [Also see PoE above]
  • The lens should be angled (more) down. I literally have to have the camera at its most extreme downwards facing angle to cover straight down, but even at this extreme angle I can still capture straight ahead across the road to my neighbours front door. The camera looks almost drunk at this ludicrously downward angle. If the lens had simply been pointing more down in the case, the outcome would be far better! I suspect no one has the camera at any angle other than a significantly downward facing angle.

Questions
Questions for other users:-
  • If I add a Ring Doorbell overlooking the same area as my Ring Security Camera, will I then start getting two notifications (seconds apart)? Or will the software realise it's sent me one, so it won't send me yet another?


Note 1: My camera is measuring an RSSI of -32, which I suspect is about as good as it can get.

Note 2: Given Ring's Andriod version requirement seems to be the highest of most of these sort of companies, it's a bit of a shame their app isn't more functional (eg: animated thumbs etc).
 
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Have got say I agree with all of those. I use android autoapps notification to block ring notifications with tasker when I dont want them. Anoyinglly it doesn't fully block so my phone will still vibrate even though the notification is instantly cleared.

My opinion of ring is that it's a flawed product and possibly some of the flaws are unfixable. It's better than nothing though and it's hard to fault ring customer service. If I move home I will probably just go hikvision next time.
 
Have played around some more... When you get a notification and click on it:-
- If the video has not uploaded yet (eg: it happened a minute or less ago) and there is no entry in your events, you'll therefore be taken to Live View.
- If the video has been uploaded (eg: it happened two+ minutes ago), then you will be taken to that motion video (as you'd expect).

IMHO, motion videos need to be offered to you ASAP. I cannot see why, they cannot as you're 4-5 second at least behind them, and I'd hope they'd be uploading faster than you can watch. As I said above, worse case, for a video that is still uploading/recording, just don't allow the user to fast forward. But being left for two minutes, wondering what a notification is about? Not good!

Note: As regards an option to turn off all camera notifications from a single/easy option in the app? Wyze cameras say they are adding such an option.

ps: How long does it take for a motion video to appear on your list after you get notified?
 
It takes a couple of minutes to appear. First there is nothing, then it is listed but you can't view it. It's something that has bothered me. I also find I can't live view most of the time while a motion video is uploading, or whatever it's doing.
 
It takes a couple of minutes to appear. First there is nothing, then it is listed but you can't view it. It's something that has bothered me. I also find I can't live view most of the time while a motion video is uploading, or whatever it's doing.
Yes, so this is my biggest issue - Hence my "VERY URGENT" :)

I see no reason why the motion video cannot be offered immediately for review. Waiting 2 minutes is plain daft/poor!

I'd suggest you email them about this weakness, or you can simply post a chat on their Facebook page and they'll respond. The more poeple that do this, the more chance it has of being addressed surely.
 
Interesting observations, the first lot is exactly the reason I went with Netatmo. Their recognition is brilliant, and instant, and it not only provides you a thumbnail, it also zooms in automatically on the events. And send it to my iPhone or Apple Watch.
 
Interesting observations, the first lot is exactly the reason I went with Netatmo. Their recognition is brilliant, and instant, and it not only provides you a thumbnail, it also zooms in automatically on the events. And send it to my iPhone or Apple Watch.
I was toying with the Netatmo unit (as I have their heating system), but seeing how they've not followed it up in years (when was their last camera device added?), how their heating valves seem to be causing all manner of issues, I decided to try Ring. ie: Netatmo seem to being crowded out of the market.

Add to this Ring of course now have Amazon's backing I suspect over the next year Ring will being leaping forwards. I suspect it's more than a coincidence that the indoor/outdoor stick up cam Ring announced end of last year, still hasn't been released. ie: Amazon are getting involved!

You have to hope Amazon get involved with the recognition side of things, and also the networking side of things so, (a) motion/facial recognition gets introduced, (b) things like clips/thumbnails being available immediately is introduced.
 
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I wonder if the 2 minute window is something to do with the SLA Ring have with their Cloud service provider.
 
I wonder if the 2 minute window is something to do with the SLA Ring have with their Cloud service provider.
I think it's just a technical design limitation.

ie: Most of the time, the video is of course being recorded and being uploaded. eg: 1m30s of it? They're simply not willing to, or cable of, offering you the video to watch while it's still being transfered up the line.

So the event might have happened 30s ago, and the upload is taking place with say now 20s of footage on the server, and another 30s of footage to upload over the next say 40s... They're not allowing you to start watching that video as it continues to extend (upload)...

I see no reason for this limitation. While in this state they simply show on the screen it's still recording/uploading and no fast forward is offered. Also if you reach the end of the video, because your upload speed it poor, they simply come up with a message to that effect and have a restart option which restarts from the beginning of the clip.

It can all be overcome, especially because as it stands at the moment IMHO, it's almost a deal break because of how clunky it makes it!
 
Am I missing something? If you are concerned about a notification and want to see immediately wouldn’t instant live view make more sense? I mean you can see what is happening now. What happened in the past has already happened, that can be a secondary event for investigation there after.

Either way, when you aren’t there then why is there the urgency to see it right there and then?

I’ve got my systems for a while now and actually switched off the notifications all together. When the alarm system alerts me, then I’ll go back and see what was recorded.

Naturally I recognise we all have a different ways.
 
I wonder if the 2 minute window is something to do with the SLA Ring have with their Cloud service provider.
I suspect that it is doing a transform to a different format to be displayed in the apps, and muxing it with meta data.
 
Am I missing something? If you are concerned about a notification and want to see immediately wouldn’t instant live view make more sense? I mean you can see what is happening now. What happened in the past has already happened, that can be a secondary event for investigation there after.

Either way, when you aren’t there then why is there the urgency to see it right there and then?

I’ve got my systems for a while now and actually switched off the notifications all together. When the alarm system alerts me, then I’ll go back and see what was recorded.

Naturally I recognise we all have a different ways.
You get a notification of movement. In reality this notifciation is probably about movement now 10-15 seconds ago.

Approach 1
You click the Notification and (as the video is not available) you're taken to Live View and see nothing... What was the cause? How can you find you find out?

So you attempt Approach 2...

Approach 2
You go to the Ring Dash, and for 1-2 minutes see nothing ne... until finally the motion event is listed and the video is finally availble to view.

What Should Happen!
When ever you you click on the Notification, be it from an event 20 seconds or 20 minutes ago, you should always view the video of the motion event! Or at least you should have this as an optional behaviour!

At the moment because the event from 20 seconds ago isn't available in any shape or form in the Ring app, the app simply takes you to Live View. But if you actually want to see what the movement was, you're left in some bizarre no mans land where you had to just wait for minutes... Which is daft!

Ultimately, you get a motion notification - You may as well ignore it for two minutes and then click it, because then you will actually be taken in to see the motion video itself. Daft!
 
I think that once it’s settled down you’ll find you may not want to look at every notification. I know I switched them off.
 
I think that once it’s settled down you’ll find you may not want to look at every notification. I know I switched them off.
Maybe so... But doesn't stop this behaviour being poor. Again, the video motion video needs to be available basically immediately, and there's no reason why it cannot.

Having to wait minute(s) for an entry to appear on the list and to be able to review the footage is bad. Especially given it's a key purpose of the device.

Furthermore, your suggestion makes my second issue, all the important surely?:-
Motion clips should have a sped up small thumbnail animation against each one in the list, so you can simply decide if you even need to look at it. eg: The thumbnal in the list shows your partner's car arriving on the drive, so you know there's no need to even look at the full video. An alternative would be a small static thumbnail taken from X seconds into the clip (again this might be enough to let you know the cause of motion), and then when you put your finger somewhere on the motion line the thumbnail then animates as described above.​
 
UPDATE: I know of at least one case for each of the last two days where significant motion events have not been captured.

Today's was pretty black and white. A motion clip showed my son returning across the drive having walked the dog. There is no clip X minutes before with him walking off with the dog.

An hour or so later it did manage to record him leaving the house to meet some friends.

Why was he and the dog not recorded leaving the house?


I believe yesterday a car pulling onto the drive was ignored!
 
Last night I saw the security light come on twice in a row - I suspect it was my cat on the bonnet of my car - YET, no motion event/footage was captured. Later in evening I noticed it was on again, and no event detected/recorded.

I realised I could go outside, to the edge of the camera's view and wave a hand and the security light would come on, but no motion would be reported/recorded. I even set the motion sensitivity for the light down to the absolute minimum, and waving my hand, from 7m away or so, would still kick off the lights.

The lights could be flicking on/off all night long for all I know...

Seems odd motion detetion/recording, and the lights coming on seem to be two completely disparate things. At the very least why can't you define the spot light to only come on if motion is detected/recorded (& it's dark)?
 
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Last night I saw the security light come on twice in a row - I suspect it was my cat on the bonnet of my car - YET, no motion event/footage was captured. Later in evening I noticed it was on again, and no event detected/recorded.

I realised I could go outside, to the edge of the camera's view and wave a hand and the security light would come on, but no motion would be reported/recorded. I even set the motion sensitivity for the light down to the absolute minimum, and waving my hand, from 7m away or so, would still kick off the lights.

The lights could be flicking on/off all night long for all I know...

Seems odd motion detetion/recording, and the lights coming on seem to be two completely disparate things. At the very least why can't you define the spot light to only come on if motion is detected/recorded (& it's dark)?

This is the same for my floodlight camera, but I don't view it as a problem. I can open a bedroom window and as the camera is mounted so high the light will turn on. This window isn't in view on the camera though so nothing will record. I'm not sure if the security camera has a separate light sensor but expect it does. These work in different ways. Also the camera can be told to only alert/record to motion in certain areas, whereas the light will still come on for any motion.

Missing obvious motion events isn't good though. I can't say mine does that. I would check all your settings and if still happening call them.
 
Seems odd there isn't at least an option to "sync" them. ie: So they only come on if the camera spots motion/something worth recording.

For example, last night a car drove by and tricked the unit such that the car lights set off a motion detection/recording. Why didn't the security lights come on if it thought there was motion? Seems odd not to sync them! Motion detected? Night Time? Turn lights on! Or at least an option to behave this way, because then you can turn off the motion zone detection for the light, and work just this way if you wish!

And it also concerned me the absolute lowest sensitivity setting for the light coming on still meant it was coming on from something 7m away!
 
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My partner leaving the house with the dog this morning - Not detected

My partner returning to the house 20mins later with the dog - Not detected
 
Don’t know why you have so many problems. I’d return it if I was you. Perhaps try the Netatmo presence.
 
Don’t know why you have so many problems. I’d return it if I was you. Perhaps try the Netatmo presence.
Just fear Netatmo is a dead end path... ie: They're just not doing any new hardware in this area at all. Meanwhile Ring/Amazon are bound to be moving things forwards. I also want some indoor cameras, and Ring announced some 8 months ago but they've not been released yet. I wonder if Amazon (who bought Ring around then) are redoing them for greater functionality!

As regards detection, Ring recommending me breaking my one massive odd shape detection zone into a number of individual ones. So I've not got three for the left hedge, right hedge and center drive area. TBH it seems better.

HOWEVER. I have noticed a PIR issue where at night I can walk right up to the camera from the front and the light doesn't come on till 1-2 metres away. I'm talking to Ring about this oddity!

As I've just posted on another thread:-

BTW, there's a really daft bit of functionality with these cameras (spotlight too I'd imagine). At night, the camera can detect motion, and notify/record it. Hoever, there's not simply an option to also say, if you spot motion as well as recording it, turn the light on (at night).

Instead the light is independent on a PIR, meaning you can get the daft situation of a notification and recording of motion at night, and the light not being turned on.

Quite simply there needs to be two simple additions to the software:-
1) In the motion detection options, a new "Turn Light On" option so at night, if motion is detected/recorded, the light is turned on.
2) In the PIR related options, a new "Record" option so if the PIR is triggered, the camera also records.

Those two simple options give you a myriad of ways for the camera to behave to your liking.

Seems bonkers at the moment, at night, the camera can detect motion, record, and NOT turn the light on.​
 
Lol one is “dead end” but works, and the other provides hope that it might in the future but is rather bad with how it is now :)

I’d rather have something that works now and I’ll look again in the future.
 
Lol one is “dead end” but works, and the other provides hope that it might in the future but is rather bad with how it is now :)

I’d rather have something that works now and I’ll look again in the future.
That's not entirely true is it :)

The issue with the light not coming on when motion is detected seemingly is a bug. So hopefully that will be fixed shortly :)
 
Well, I'd say after a couple of weeks with the unit, if they can fix the issue with the light not coming on at night when motion is detected (which supposedly they are) the unit it pretty good.

The software needs to be improved with event notifications:-
  • At least offer an immediate screenshot/thumb of the motion that triggered the event, and an entry in the list immediately (not after a minute +). An sped up animated thumb image of the entire 1min video, or the 10 seconds surrounding the motion trigger, would be ideal. I see no reason why an instant event entry at least with a thumbnail imagine cannot be achieved.
  • Ideally make the motion video available immediately, not after 1-2mins. This must be achievable on one way or another surely?
The hardware needs to be improved (next gen I assume):-
  • The lens should be pointing down more by default, or ideally should be adjustable independantly of the main unit, for example so you can angle the lens up/down just by itself.
  • The cable should not have a molded plug.
  • The unit should allow a wired solution. Power over Ethernet ideally.

If Ring can now simply bring they Stick Up cameras to market (announced 8 months ago) and these are competitive with say Wyze from a technology POV, then great, I'll get some of these indoors/outdoors to add to my Ring system.


I can only imagine that Amazon bought Ring, and the two of them are revamping the Stickup Cam and the Ring software, hence the delay?
 

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