Battling my RING cameras again... Motion activated lights triggering against settings, I think

Products Security Cams
#1

Hi Just when I thought I had this figured out. Ok I have a number of anomolies, I’ll make one post at a time.

Spotlight Cam Mount.

Device settings all off, in Disarmed Mode (“Lights,” " Record Motion," “Motion Alerts” - off)

Motion zone set to a specific custom zone.

The Motion Zone is also set to a narrow area, which I never fully understood the meaning of this when you have aleady set up a custom zone.

What’s happening: The lights are triggering on with motion WELL outside the custom zone, and while settings all appear to be OFF.

Question 1: Why is the light triggering when everything is set to “OFF.”

Question 2: Why is the light triggering WELL outside of the custom zone I set up. Basically it’s a small porch nest to a driveway. Ten feet of grass in between. Custom zone set only to the areas of the porch itself. As I walk down the driveway - way outside the custom zone, at least ten feet away, beyond the grass, the light is triggering on. WHY?

See attached images, that may help.

Thank you for any help

#2

Hi @Solaris. This could be due to how your camera is mounted. What is the height that it is mounted at? Also, is the bubble on the bottom of your Spotlight Cam parallel to the ground? The mounting height and bubble position play a big part of how your lights are triggered. If your lights are coming on with a low sensitivity, you may need to angle the Camera down more to counter this. Try adjusting the angle of your Spotlight Cam to see if it works better for you. Let me know if this works!

#3

Seriously? Are you an employee of RING? The angle and the buble light parallel to the ground? Right… Does it say anything about this in the instructions? Uh No… Battling this highly finicky camera system for four months and you’re telling it could be the angle and that the light is not parallel. Well it is mounted on a plate with a swivel ball, so it should be able to point at any angle and work just fine. That’s my opinion. No one warned me of anything like that.

No the bubble on the bottom is not parallel to the ground. Why would it be. It is mounted on a wall above a porch area, so it has point at an angle down. Is this an official design spec? Doubftul. Ridiculous if this is the only solution from an actual staff member.

#4

Hi @Solaris. I do apologize if the instructions were unclear. I can absolutely pass along your feedback. For your convenience, you can click this link here for directions on proper mounting. It also has a great YouTube video that I’ve found to be helpful! If you prefer, you can click this link here to download a copy of the instruction manual which, on page 17, has a great depiction of the Motion Detection zones for both your camera and your lights. Finding what Camera position for your specific home my be a bit of trial and error. I hope that after adjusting your Spotlight cam, you are able to notice an improvement!

If for any reason you need help with this process, please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19, so this has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support.

#5

Tom, thanks for that. You can sense my frustration, I don’t mean to come off short. I’ve been battling these cameras for months, unable to configure them to perform exactly as needed. In hindsight, I would have chosen another brand had I known.

The instructions I have found to be general at best. I have spoken on the phone with support before, but even they are not able to assist. Explaining the minutae of settings and why it’s set one way and doing something else, who knows. You need something physically with you.

Anyway, can you answer me this one question: how can you deactivate the lights altogether? Keep the motion sensitivity going, live view, and just completely disable the lights. You can’t right? Why not? Makes absolutely no sense that you can’t simply shut off the entiure spotlight feature if that suits your needs.

Will keep fiddling…