I’m amazed that it’s taking this long for what appears to be a simple binary switch. Do we know when the next major release will be ready?? Do you have a beta program?
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I totally agree; the night vision colorization is a useless feature! It colorizes some light sources like lamp posts and windows, but doesn’t help to see any objects because it is in IR-mode.
How hard can it be for Ring to add a switch disabling the IR-mode, that is completely useless (or better: a hindrance) in a well-lit street? And, to my opinion, IR is fairly useless in general because the IR LED’s are too weak to enlighten anything beyond three feet distance.
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Can anyone tell me if it’s possible for a physical reason why Ring cannot add the ability to turn off night vision, even with a firmware upgrade? For example, could they have put it on a separate chip that cannot be controlled by a firmware upgrade?
I’m trying to figure out why Ring has not corrected this yet. We are not asking for a feature. It’s not a want, as one of the managers claimed. It’s a BUG FIX! Our Ring doorbells are not operating as advertised. They are defective. Ring shows their doorbell being able to capture useable video at night, and that’s not what’s happening. We know why. We know what would fix it. But for some reason, Ring refuses to address the problem.
I’m getting the very same problem as everyone else here. When night vision turns itself on, whatever is closest to the doorbell looks white (regardless of its true color), and everything else is black with a few dots here and there from houses with their lights on. But as soon as I cover the infrared lights, bingo! I have a decent video again where I can see all the way to the street and beyond.
The night vision is mistakingly using the closest object to set the lighting levels. The close object is set to extreme white (regardless of its true color) and the midtones are set extremely dark. almost black. The result is an image with a glaringly white object and everything else black or nearly black. This is not how night vision is supposed to work.
We want night vision turned off because it’s broken. If it worked right, we wouldn’t have this problem.
In the last 2 days, I’ve talked with Ring’s customer service for several hours, with the last few hours talking with a supervisor. He’s a nice person, but he has no knowledge of how Ring doorbells work. His latest suggestion was to turn the infrared lights to the lowest setting, something he says that he can do, but neither I nor the regular customer service reps could do. The effect? He turned off the color vision – which we all know is a setting in the Ring app. And, of course, the instant I removed the tape covering the infrared lights, the video went black again. I regained video when I put the tape back on.
I also did the flashlight trick someone else suggested in this thread. When I shined the light at the doorbell, I could hear an audible click as the night vision shut off. But when I removed the light, I got 1-2 seconds of video and then click, the night vision turned itself back on which destroyed my video.
The next step the Ring supervisor said he’d do is send me a replacement doorbell. I’ll take it with the very slim hope that the night vision setting is less sensitive on the replacement doorbell and won’t turn itself on at night – but I’m not holding my breath.
The problem is in the design of these doorbells. It is a design flaw. And I question whether it can be fixed with a firmware upgrade. I suspect not. And I suspect Ring knows this which is why they have not addressed this problem. And if I’m right, it means that Ring has knowingly and intentionally left us hanging with defective devices. How else can they explain not fixing this defect in a year?
https://share.ring.com/ee2b6182-d5f7-460b-96d9-8c9229109aee.mp4
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Time for a clalss action lawsuit against ring eh???
Hi neighbors! We take your feedback very seriously and have shared it with our teams, and continue to share it.
Low light adjustment for any lens is often dependent upon the lighting in the area. Our devices feature night vision adjustment which should help in most environments. For well lit areas, the color night vision feature will help to brighten or add hue to the picture.
As every entry way is unique, we like to provide various solutions for neighbors to obtain what they are looking for. Any obstructions in view of the lens might affect focal point, field of view, and adjustment. For scenarios like these, I recommend looking into our wedge or corner kits on our accessories page, if settings have not helped.
Covering your entry way is a great start at obtaining a true “Ring of security”, but if you are looking to cover beyond certain obstructions we recommend checking out one of our Security Cams as well! We are always working to add to and improve our neighbor experience, and will be sure to update the Community with anything new we hear from our teams! 
Seriosuly Marley, but that response beggars belief.
“We like to provide various solutions for neighbours to optain what they are looking for”
Eh no you don’t we just want the ability to turn off the night light !
“I recommend looking into our wedge or corner kits on our accessories page”
This is almost hilarious, you want people to spend more money on something that is quite expensive for what it provides which simply does not work.
“we recommend checking out one of our Security Cams”
Again why on earth would one consider purchasing another cam when the one we have already does not work as advertised. !
56 People so far have requested this feature:
https://community.ring.com/t5/Feature-Request-Board/Option-to-turn-off-Night-Vision-on-Ring-Cameras/idc-p/27490#M294
Please anyone else posting to this forum thread add your vote to this feature request. Even though as noted before it’s really a bug fix not a feature request !
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I found a solution! I increased the amount of light coming from my porch light which is now bright enough to prevent the night vision from turning on.
I installed my Ring Video Doorbell Pro last November and had great night time videos for months. Then the videos became very dark. The red bricks close by looked brilliant white while everything else was black or darn near black. I couldn’t see anything.
I contacted Ring’s customer support, talked with them for many hours, most of which was with a superviser. I got the standard blurbs we see here which clearly indicated that they had no idea what was happening.
Covering up the infrared lights helped. The red bricks weren’t dazzling white anymore and the rest of the video became visible again, but it was still more dull than it had been before.
And that’s when it hit me. If darkness turned the night vision on, then brightness should turn it off.
My porch light uses 3 bulbs. I was using LED bulbs rated at 2700K and 270 lumens. That’s only 810 lumens all together. I switched them to LED bulbs rated at 5000K and 400 lumens. That’s now 1200 lumens total which is 150% of what I had before. Plus, 5000K light bulbs appear brighter than 2700K (due to the yellow shade of 2700K). I also cleaned the porch light’s glass fixture.
And bingo! No more night vision! My videos are back to what they were when I first installed the doorbell without the need to cover the infrared lights with tape.
This is such a simple solution and is actually the opposite of what Ring had suggested to me. They tried to tell me to turn my porch light off – which police departments do not recommend because it is well known that criminals prefer to work in the dark. So not only was Ring’s suggestions unhelpful and unsafe, but it was dead wrong. It was, in fact, the very opposite to the solution.
If you want to turn off your night vision, brighten the lighting around the doorbell. Clean fixtures and install brighter light bulbs. Yes, Ring should not make this necessary, but they do, and at least there is a work-around.
I have attached screen grabs of the doorbell videos to show the changes (4 screen grabs combined into two files due to the attachment limit):
- Original View + with Night Vision.png
- Infrared Covered + Brighter Porch Lights.png
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I purchased and installed my Ring Pro video doorbell last Summer. For many months, I had a clear color image of everything in front my house at night, with or without motion. Sometime since then, Ring changed the algorithm for when the night vision enables. I have not changed my front porch light bulb during any of this time. When the night vision enables, the IR emitters, in addiition to my porch light, washes out and blurs the captured image dramatically reducing the value of this video doorbell. I have been waiting, hoping that Ring would see the mistake they made and resolve it. While I prefer that RIng return to the older algorithm for enabling the night vision, providing an option to diable the night vision is not only a good compromise but a great way to broaden the applications of these video doorbells.
What is suppossed to happen when the company you purchased a perfectly good solution from changes the product through an update making the solution useless?
I have waited patiently for Ring to resolve this issue but seeing that RIng has been ignoring this issue , even with the attention it is garnering in this community, I too believe it is time to look at competing products.
Thanks, I was going to try that and was hoping someone had already tried it!
It’s silly to say it can’t be done when you can turn the lights on a spotlight camera, then turn it off and it takes a couple of seconds for the IR to turn on and during that two seconds you have a great usable view that disappears. Just take that intermediate step as an option. I’ll add my vote
@rchildress wrote:
Thanks, I was going to try that and was hoping someone had already tried it!
It works really well with just one snag. Anytime a lizard or insect gets too close, the darn night vision comes back on. To turn it back off, I shine a flashlight into the camera, but who wants to get up in the middle of the night to shine a flashlight into the camera just because an insect flew by?
So I’m going to cover the infrared lights again, hoping the two solutions will work together to stop the night vision from activating once and for all.
@rchildress wrote:
It’s silly to say it can’t be done when you can turn the lights on a spotlight camera, then turn it off and it takes a couple of seconds for the IR to turn on and during that two seconds you have a great usable view that disappears. Just take that intermediate step as an option. I’ll add my vote
The difference in video quality I get when the night vision is turned on vs off is amazing. Here’s one of my videos where I’m deactivating the night vision with a flashlight. The difference is so dramatic, I can’t help but believe the night vision is defective. Surely, they didn’t intend to degrade the videos like that.
Also listen to the very choppy audio. It was raining that morning, and you can hear the sound constantly cutting out. Neither I nor the person at the door can get enough full words out to communicate. I always have to go to the door.
Here’s a link to the video:
https://ring.com/share/ffbb0664-2cb3-4ea4-a69f-00f8af98be21
Oh, how’s this for a laugh. The Ring community forums have a big video button to add a video to your post, but it refuses to accept videos from ring. They want videos from youtube.
I think Ring is over their heads. I want to add another video cam, and I’ve decided to get a different brand. I don’t think Ring has the technical ability to produce a quality product.
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I linked your video in the request thread because I think it does a very good job showing what the problem is with having the IR forced on at night. Hopefully the Ring engineers see the video and finally understand what so many people are complaining about.
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My previous solution worked well, but it still had failures. By accident, I discovered another part of the solution.
My husband used a pressure washer to clean our porch and the walkway leading up to our porch… Suddenly, the number of times in which the night vision came on decreased dramatically. It seems the clean, white walkway reflects the porch lights, fooling the Ring Video Doorbell Pro into thinking the area is brighter and, therefore, doesn’t need the night vision. The only time night vision came on after the cleaning was 1 night when the whole area was darkened by a rain storm.
I’ve included a picture showing the difference. Notice how the cleaned walkway reflects the light. That seems to be helping stop the night vision.
I have also removed the cover over the inferred lights. If I can prevent the night vision from coming on, then the inferred lights won’t come on either.
I may upgrade the porch lights one more time with the brightest lights available for my fixture. Light is the answer, no doubt about it. Anything you can do to brighten the area will help prevent Ring from turning on the night vision.
It’s crazy that all this is necessary to stop the night vision from coming on and ruining the video. Ring should do better than this. Not only should they have a switch to allow customers to turn off night vision, but when Ring’s night vision does come on, it should take better quality videos. In both ways, Ring has failed.
So change your porch lights to bright lights, leave them on all night long, clean your porch and walkway if dirty, and if needed, add something white to bounce back the light (maybe a couple of white planters?). Whatever you do, light is the workaround solution.
Hello Ring Community,
any information from the ring team about this option?
None. Zero. Lots of good comments from users on creative solutions but the RIng Team has not contributed and there is no acknowledgement that they will provide the option to disable night vision.
One of the services I think my monthly fee should be going toward is some effort to maintain and improve the product. Sadly disappointed that Ring has not even responded. If Ring does not have a solution by the end of the year, I am replacing my Ring doorbell with a Eufy doorbell. No monthly fee and better resolution. Check it out at: https://www.eufylife.com/products/variant/video-doorbell/T82001J1?search=masterbanner&keywords=us_hotdeals
I do have this issue as well. I was trying to put a tape in front of the IR LEDs. Really hope this request can reach to the Ring’s tech team to look into.
Marley, in your response you mentioned that in the Ring app, you can adjust your Night Vision settings to Standard or Well-Lit area. Where is this setting? It’s not where the night vision toggle switch is. I’ve looked all over and can’t find it. Can you help me find it?
Hi @PatS. I’m happy to chime in for Marley here. I checked with my team on this, and I’d like to clarify that the Night Vision settings you’re referring to are only available for the Video Doorbell Pro 2 at this time. I apologize for any confusion and I’ve shared this feedback with my team. 
Would you mind marking where on the spotlight camera the ir lights are located the ir lights are attracting bug and the bugs attract spiders and I get tons of false motion detections from the webs I want to tape over the ir and see if that works tyvm