Flying insects and spiders setting off motion at night

I have a Ring Smart Video Doorbell Pro with Built-in Wi-Fi & Camera . The motion detection works well during the day. However Spiders and flying insect trigger the Motion detection during the night. Is there a setting to avoid it?

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Hey @Gallina. I’ve seen some neighbors put bug spray/repellent around the Doorbell it help out with this concern. You can turn down your sensitivity to help see if this will reduce the times the bugs are picked up, but you can give that suggestion a try to see if that helps too! :slight_smile:

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My issue is insects are setting of PEOPLE alerts, let alone motion alerts. My Nest cameras NEVER had issues. I am getting PEOPLE alerts every night from every camera. Ring this is very bad!

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Another night of false alerts. Another day of false alerts. People detection is being falsely advertised IMO.

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You are wrong. Plain and simple. When you select PEOPLE motion detection, it should only be detecting and notifying on PEOPLE. Otherwise how is it different than plain old motion detection??? There is nothing to tweak!

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Hi @mysteryy. The Motion Settings options available on your Ring Doorbell or Camera are there so you can adjust and fine-tune the settings based on your preferences. Utilizing the Person alerts underneath Smart Alerts can help you narrow down the type of notifications you receive when your device detects motion. If insects fly very close to your Doorbell or Camera, it may still trigger a motion alert due to how close they are to the Camera. It can take a bit of trial and error to find the combination of settings that works best for your home.

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No Caitlyn. You are not grasping. I am using Smart Alerts and have selected PEOPLE detection only. Insects should not be detected as People. END OF STORY. Google Nest does it perfectly. What is Ring’s issue?

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Hi @mysteryy. Happy to chime in here. The issue with insects triggering your Smart Alerts and producing false notifications is a matter of perspective. From the perspective of the camera, an insect 15’ away is, well, insect sized. But an insect 3" away from the perspective of the camera is much larger and possibly even “human sized”, relative to the size of a human approaching the camera. So with 2 equally sized objects in the view of the camera, 1 human- 1 insect, the camera may not be able to discern which object is human because they are both equal in size. My best suggestion to mitigate this is use some sort of bug treatment around the Ring Device, such as a repellant or bug light. I’ve done this and found great success. I hope this information helps.

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ok so ring takes a LAZY approach and looks at size for PEOPLE (smart) alerts? what a JOKE. Google/Nest likely puts in a little effort and likely uses Machine Learning/AI. Again, many years running dozens of Google Nest cameras, no false positives. One month running Ring, 100s of false positives. How about Ring lift a finger and invest in actual PERSON alerts, not size alerts. I would say this is false advertising, Ring is not capable of detecting people, just certain size things, which could be squirrels or insects, that may be claimed as PEOPLE. So why are squirrels triggering person alerts? A squirrel is not the size of a human, right?

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Hi @mysteryy. I suggest contacting our support team to look at your specific issue so they can help resolve this concern for you. Please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. If you are outside of the US, please visit here to see how to contact support.

No, its not my specific issue. Its an issue with ALL Ring products for everyone. And I have attempted to contact support before for blatant bug issue that is reproducible and posted all over this very forum, and I wasted hours and hours of my time and got ZERO assistance and nothing but broke promises.

I want to add the new thing is not only insects, squirrels, setting off PERSON alerts, its now also shadows. Again, Ring should be honest that they dont do people detection, if its based on sizes, etc. Thats not people detection. Nest does people detection somehow. Ring should try to figure out and stop false advertising.

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So here is the deal. Ring should not use the word security with any of their products. They are lackluster, at best. Further, security is decreased with false alerts. This is fact. Any security professional knows this. You want products that are accurate and do not yield false alerts because it impacts human perception and then real alerts are overlooked. Again, Security 101. So Ring is in a sense DECREASING ones safety and security by not resolving this issue.

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you dont get it lol!

No. I don’t think it is. I’m not having this problem. I’m coming from a different brand because of inaccurate motion detections and So far my ring is working as expected. Perhaps try turning off Smart Alerts and saving settings. Then turning back on Smart Alerts and configuring for Person Record and Alerts and for Other Motion record, but not alert.

ok i disabled and re-enabled but highly doubt that is going to fix anything. this is happening with ALL of my ring cameras, not just one, which leads me to believe its a systematic issue. even ring representatives said the detection is based on size, etc, not necessarily people.

no go, multiple false alerts last night from multiple cameras.

Hmm. that’s a bummer. I guess it’s time to deal with tech support. Too bad you’re having this problem coming from another brand. I’m coming from another brand too (which I had similar issues that you’re having with Ring) and so far my doorbell is working well. I hope you get this resolved. I know it’s frustrating.

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Agree! I get person alerts whenever our pickup truck pulls in our driveway. I have tweaked the sensitivity settings to no avail. I also get people alerts in the middle of the night and I have to take a broom to sweep the camera to stop them. Add this to having to remove a cover and push a button to reconnect (kind of hard to do when you are 1000 miles away on vacation, at work, or when you are disabled and the camera is on the 2nd floor. If I am HOME I wouldn’t need the camera…) These issues make me hesitate to recommend this to others. I will keep using it since I have a lot of $$ invested, but I will let everyone know the negatives so they can make their decision based on the cons as well as the pros.

Another night of false alerts!

I have set all my cameras to People detection only aka smart alerts and past three months I have gotten hundreds of false notifications, squirrels and chipmunks seem to set off regularly, and they are nothing like a person. In addition shadows, leaves, spiders, insects, etc, set off PEOPLE alerts. My security has officially decreased and hit an all time low due to all of these false alerts. Pretty scary. Google Nest cameras never had false alerts, I had them in the same spots, for 6+ years.

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