Hardwired doorbell cam alerts triggering from outside zones


Hi all. I’m having an issue with my doorbell recognizing and sending alerts for just about every car that drives by, despite the motion zones only being the porch. The flag moving doesn’t generally set it off , but most walkers and vehicles driving by set it off. My sensitivity setting is at the lowest. I do not have a ring subscription as I already have security cams that record locally. I have noticed this has gotten worse in the last 3 or so months. Worked great at the initial install for a while. Now it’s just getting really annoying. I do want to know when someone is on the porch so don’t want to turn off motion recognition

Hi @SCRadio. I would first try to adjust your Motion Zones. Right now, it looks like you have multiple zones that are overlapping. Try adjusting each zone to be in its own space, and not overlapping with another zone. Additionally, since you only have a small area you wish to record, you can try adding a Wedge Kit to angle the Doorbell away from the street, leaving only the desired area as the focal point. This Community post here has some great tips as well. I hope this helps!

Ok so I’ve modified the motion zone.
Why is it that cars driving by would still set motion off? Are the zones really motion zones or just there to make us feel better? My sensitivity is set all the way down.

Hi @SCRadio. Does this happen more at night or during the day? The Motion Zones are there to help capture motion in the areas you want. If this is happening at night mostly, it is possible that the headlights from the car are “tricking” the camera into sensing there is motion. Another option would be to enable Smart Alerts. This will help mitigate unwanted alerts from your Doorbell. To see if this could work for you, check out this Help Center article here.

Shadows can be an issue!

I have my own motion zones set to record within my property, but during late summer - with the doorbell facing to the west - shadow elongation from people walking by would trigger motion alerts.

From your images, you have shadows too.

Incidentally, cats and Magpies walking past on the lawn have also set it off a few times this year. It usually only alerts if there is actually something it sees as motion within the zones.

I have my zones set for my property and my car when it is on the driveway. However, when my car is not there, the zones will pick up my neighbour on her driveway.

I’m having the same issue with the Ring Doorbell and the Ring Floodlight. I have talked with tech support and given it over a week to see if the setting we changed have worked. It does not. Both units have only one zone and they have been reduced in size. I still get an enormous amount of motion detections outside of the zones. Ring is not consistent in recognizing people - several are marked as motion and not People. So frustrated!

Hi @RingNye. I’d recommend following up with our support team, since they helped you adjust the settings initially and that did not resolve the problem. This concern may need to be escalated if regular troubleshooting steps do not help with the motion detection.

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