Best device for this is a DVR system. Nothing battery powered as well.
@JohnMihaljevic wrote:
I’ve got a Ring Doorbell (battery) and a Ring Spotlight Cam (battery) to watch my front door and back yard. I’d like to add another camera that watches the street 24/7 and records constantly (or at least with any motion). I don’t need notifications. I just want to be able to look back any time there has been suspicious activity on the street.
Which is the best device for this purpose? I prefer something I can plug into an outside outlet. Thank you!
Hello @JohnMihaljevic ,
An outdoor Ring Video Camera is designed to record video when it detects a motion-triggering event, so therefore it cannot record 24/7. But there is a way to come pretty close to 24/7, especially if you are going to be monitoring a street that has frequent passing cars.
I too wanted to do something similar (monitor & record activity in my front yard that also faces my street). I’ll tell you what I did, and then you can decide for yourself, if what I did might satisfy your needs.
I purchased a Ring " Stick-up Cam Plug-in". You do not want to purchase any battery version camera, because:
- Attempting to maximize the camera to do as many recordings as it can, will quickly deplete the battery, causing frequent recharging.
- The Ring Battery-powered versions will NOT have some of the “power-depleting” options or settings (to extend battery life) that are available in the Plug-in/Wired powered models , such as the 30-second interval “Snapshot” feature option.
I intentionally mounted and selected settings to maximize the Stick-Up camera’s ability to have the most motion-triggering opportunities, to get as close to 24 hour video coverage as I could. I mounted my “Stick-up Cam Plug-in” on my house’s wall facing the street.
For Stick-up Cam Mounting:
- Mounted it a little bit lower than normal (about 7 feet above the ground). Mounting it lower had two major effects:
For Stick-up Cam "Motion Settings: (to maximize motion-triggering events to be recorded).
- Customize/edit your Motion Zones to cover the entire camera’s field-of-view.
- Adjust Motion Sensitivity to “Most Sensitive./All Motion”
- During the set-up, when it asked "Does your camera face the street, answer “No.”
- “People Only Mode” toggled OFF.
- Do not use “Motion Schedule.”
For Stick-up Cam Device page:
- “Record Motion” toggled ON.
- “Motion Alerts” toggled OFF (your App will receive too numerous annoying ‘pushed’ text-type Notifications, because you set up your camera to record any event).
On OTHER camera devices: (in your case, your Video Doorbell & your Spotlight cam)
- On those devices, select “Link Devices” and toggle ON the the street facing Stick-up camera. So when these other devices are motion-triggered, they make the Stick-up cam record, just in case it is not recording at the moment. These links will make it record more often. Caution: Linking more than two cameras may slow down or stop camera recording, depending on your home’s bandwidth and Ring setup, so you should avoid linking 3 or more video cameras to this street-facing Stick-up cam. Consider linking whichever cameras potentially have the most motion-triggering events.
For Stick-up Cam "Device Settings:
-
Video Settings:
- “Live View”: Toggle ON (to enable Live View).
- “Tap Camera Preview for Live View”: Toggle ON (for faster Live View activation).
- “Video Recording Length”: set 120-seconds (new longer recording feature!).
- "Infrared Lights for Night Vision: Toggled ON (to illuminate the IR LEDs when in Night Mode).
-
Snapshot Capture:
- “Snapshot Capture”: Toggle ON
- “Snapshot Frequency”: Select “Every 30 Seconds” and then “Save.”
- “Alert Settings”: “App Alert Tones” select “Silent” (your App will receive too numerous annoying Sounds Alerts, because you set up your camera to record any event).
The Results:
I was very pleasantly shocked how far the motion-detection range is increased by mounting it lower! The lower mounting resulted in the camera’s “aiming” to be more horizontal instead of downward, thus maximizing its range distance (instead of pointing downwards to the earth). My street curb is 50 feet away from the camera and even people walking on the other side of the street trigger a recording, including all passing cars, with the following settings.
You won’t get text-type Notifications (toggled OFF) nor App Alert-Tone(selected “Silent”), but you really don’t want these because the intended goal is to record as much as possible, and not go crazy with all the numerous Notifications & Sounds from your Ring App.
Typically my “Event History” is full of recorded events, recorded for 120-seconds, and then a slight delay, followed by another batch of 120-seconds recordings. When there isn’t some motion to trigger a recording, then the “Time-line” page will have a “Snapshot” still-photograph picture every 30-seconds, which has a good chance of catching an event image that is beyond the motion-triggering range. During the day, I’ve found my Event History is full of “Back-to-back” video recordings, often triggered by passing cars on the street. Late at night, with less traffic, I have sections of only “Snapshots” between car-activations.
Other Considerations:
Setting up your camera to maximize motion-triggered video recordings will result in a lot of data-bandwidth streaming use on your Wi-Fi router. Other Wi-Fi devices might be impacted, and so you might need to compensate by upgrading your Internet-speed with your Internet provider.
Remember that both Video recordings & Snapshots are stored and can be downloaded. Videos are stored on the Ring “Cloud” server for 2 months (some countries for only 1 month). The “Snapshots” have less storage with a 7-day limit, or a maximum of 30 MB worth of snapshots on powered devices. Once either of these Snapshot limits have been reached, the oldest snapshots will be overwritten by newer ones. (Note: Battery operated device limit is a maximum of 2.5 MB ).
Also the Stick-Up Plug-in cam has a cord of 22.9 feet long, so I would recommend routing the plug to an indoor power-outlet. This reduces the chances of someone just ‘pulling the plug’ if an outdoor power-outlet is used. In my case, I drilled a hole through the wall to route the cord and then chalked-sealed the opening.
I also wasn’t too concerned about theft since I mounted the camera at a lower height, because the cam becomes useless to the thief if stolen (“Ownership” feature makes it a paperweight) and also Ring Support will replace it if stolen. I preferred maximizing my motion-detection range so the cam would trigger more frequently.
I chose a “Stick-up Plug-in cam”, but you could also use the “Spotlight Cam Wired” or “Floodlight Cam” (if you have a house-power junction box located outside facing your street for the Floodlight cam). The Stick-up and Spotlight cams currently have the 120-second video-length recording feature, and soon the Floodlight cam should have the ability to change from 60-seconds max to 120-seconds soon too (this new feature is slowly ‘rolling-out’).
Bottom-line:
You can’t get 24/7 video recordings with Ring cameras, but I am happy with how close I did get for satisfying my monitoring needs. And I still can use my Ring App to “Live-View” monitor or view recorded videos wherever I am. You’ll have to decide whether to go with another system that is truly 24/7, or if this method using a Ring cam will meet your needs. I hope that you find this information useful in your decision 
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Boone, great write up! My main question is, do you have notifications turned off for that stick up cam? In may instance I have a Ring Flood Light cam to cover the front of my house. I have motion zones to NOT get notifications for every person/car that pass, but I would like it all recorded so I can go back later if needed. My dilemmas is wanting notifications for my zones but not every alert on every moping AND want as close to 24/7 recording as possible without a zillion notifications. Thanks!
I changed my security system to ring because I thought the two way talk was an awesome feature. I did not know when I switched that it didn’t offer 24/7 recording. I really miss that with my previous security system and I don’t understand why ring does not do this. Yes, motion detection is nice but it would be nice on top of 24/7 recording and play back of any moment, not just motion detection. I would like to keep this but I will have to switch back in order to have the 24/7 recording options.
I wish you could add 24/7 recording like all other security systems on the market right now.
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i second the wish for 24/7 recording. It helps with the possibility my camera doesnt pick up motion, but maybe it catches something at a neighbors house. the 24/7 ability will make ring just that much better. I consider the lack of 24/7 recording a majot feature loss for Ring
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Bump.
Yes, this feature is sorely needed by Ring. Between 2 residences, I have a total of 10 Ring cameras. At this point, I am too far in to switch to the Nest Platform but the lack of 24/7 recording is something that would prevent me from going with Ring if I was getting started now. My neighbors with Nest cameras have been able to capture recent criminal activities int he neighborhood that my cameras have missed out on due to the lack of this feature.
Please follow through with this feature that was originally promised in 2018-19
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I might be switching because my cameras miss too much activity on my street. I am in a nice area but I have a walk through from a Main Street and constantly have different people walking through. My daughters friends bike was stolen after being outside my house for 10 mins. Camera didn’t catch anything. My dash hound/beagle mix caught a bird and killed it and only caught on camera after he already had the bird and walked in front of camera. Definitely did my research on cameras before I made my purchase and was told 24/7 recording would be implemented. Almost a year later and nothing yet. Very frustrating and feel it’s a waste of money at this point.
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I agree. I wish that they would add this. My neighbor’s car got broken into and my wired camera was in direct view. But that wasn’t in my motion zone, if it recorded 24/7 I would have the footage. Really hope they add this!
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Good Morning All,
Do we know if Ring is still developing the 24/7 recording feature?
I just purchased the Doorbell pro, a hardwired spotlight cam, and a chime repeater at the store and assumed that at least the hardwired security camera would have 24/7 recording, since it didn’t say anything to the contrary on the box.
Now that I already have it installed, I am thinking about taking it down and returning it to Amazon after finding out these devices don’t do what I need them to do. I already had an incident where the neighbors asked if I could pull footage from an incident that happened across the street, but since it wasnt a motion zone I couldn’t help them, and that was shocking.
I would consider hanging on to these products if I knew that 24/7 recording was in development and coming soon. Can we get an official response from Ring on this matter?
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Same with me - any official response from Ring/Amazon yet?
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I totally agree. This setting should be set by the user, not Ring. The user should have complete control of how long he wants to view the live view, this should not be set by Ring. My product, my setting.
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This will never happen. Ring’s whole profit model is designed to shackle you to their cloud subscription by routing your video stream over the internet to their servers and then back to you. 24/7 recording would require local access to your video stream as it would overwhelm their servers and use all of their resources if they were to record and store your video footage 24/7.
If you require local access to your own video stream, 24/7 recording and a security system that works whether you have an internet connection or not you really need to look for something else as Ring will just never enable this.
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I’m not sure if this has been updating or not, but I have the Ring Doorbell Pro 2 and I’m viewing it from the website Ring.com. I do not have to click at all to continuously view the footage. It reconnects automatically each 12 minute video. Maybe this is the answer? I am using the Chrome web browser, I am going to test it through the browser on my phone to see if does the same thing, but so far been watching for 28 minutes and haven’t had to click reconnect like I have to for the Ring app and it auto reconnected twice so far. It’s also still recording the live view event so technically could be close to 24/7 recording if you leave it on all the time or for however long you want to view it for?
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Bumping. Would love to have this. Only thing preventing me from buying more… I need the piece of mind of being able to check the yard/basement at a glance (on a spare monitor or
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Crime is out of control in my city and it’s a shame that Ring puts profit over people’s safety by not enabling this feature after 3+ years of working on it.
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Would like to be able to keep an eye on the camera from another location. No recording needed, just view and sound. Option to record if movmement but even without would be an improvement.
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Nest is doing 24/7 recording with their cameras to the cloud.
Plus Ring now offers the Alarm Pro which does local recording (yet still requires a subscription). 24/7 recording to that would be an option I think many would find acceptable.
It’s amazing that they haven’t enabled something in this space yet, if for no other reason than their competitors have.
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Hopefully this 24/7 recording feature will be available soon for wired devices. It is such a let down because companies like Google have this which i am using at my second home due to the lack of continuous recording for ring devices…
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Why is continuous viewing timed out on Alexa app? It does not record,it is just for viewing. Most ar not looking for 24/7 recording as was promised in 2019. Just continuous viewing.
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Please eliminate the 10 min live view timeout.
Allow camera to view in live mode unlimited.
No need to record everything.
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