I purchased a Ring Doorbell to install on my rental property. I registered it and bought the Ring Protect plan. Then I mounted it on my rental and used the Shared Users feature to email both the tenants access. They installed the Ring app but said they couldn’t connect the Ring to their Wifi. They are telling me I have to remove the Ring Doorbell from my property and gift them the unit so they can take it with them when they leave. I already cut the siding on the house to fit the doorbell on so I don’t want to un-mount it and I don’t want to just give them the device – I want it to stay mounted on my rental and let the next tenants use it.
I don’t believe they are telling me the truth that in order to connect to Wifi, I have to GIVE them the device. But I have searched high and low and cannot find instructions anywhere about how my tenants can connect to their Wifi. So now we’re at an impasse, and I’m paying for an annual plan for something that they’re not using.
What’s the solution? I feel like I must be missing something simple.
Hi @CoreProperties. I can absolutely shed some light on this situation. Your tenants may be a little confused here. This Help Center article here will outline what Shared Users have access to.
The Doorbell will need to be connected to the wifi network that is active at the Location where the Doorbell is mounted. If you need to change the wifi network, this Help Center article here will show you how to do that. This is something that only the Owner of the Ring account can do.
If the Doorbell is online, and they cannot see it in their Ring app, they may be on the wrong Location. You can learn more about managing Locations here. I hope this clarifies things for you.
I’m the owner of the Ring Doorbell, however I don’t have access to the tenant’s Wifi. So how can they connect their Wifi (which I don’t pay for) if they’re not the owner?
Hi @CoreProperties, happy to chime in here. There’s two different ways you could go about this situation then. You could either remove the Doorbell from your account and allow the tenants to set it up under their Ring account, or you would have to connect the Doorbell to the wifi after obtaining the wifi information from the tenants. Either way could work, so it will be up to whatever you feel works best with the tenants. 
If I remove the Ring Doorbell from my account, what happens to the annual Ring Protect plan I already paid for?
And if I give them the Ring Doorbell, that’s a $160 expense. Are you saying that the only way that a tenant can use a Ring is if they buy it themselves or if the landlord buys it for them?
I was thinking this was going to be like a refrigerator – I provide it, they use it while they are there, but then they leave it when they vacate and the next tenants use it after that.
I didn’t realize going into this that you have to literally give the device to the tenant for them to be able to use it.
@CoreProperties Our support team can refund your Ring Protect plan in the instance you decide to remove it from your account and have the tenants set it up on theirs. You can read about how the ownership of Ring devices works in our Help Center Article here. You don’t necessarily have to give the device over to the tenants forever, but I was just letting you know what options you have that could work in order to set it up with them as the owner (whoever sets up the device in their Ring App) is the only one that can change the wifi network.
I will remove the device from my account and give the unit to the tenants. I will not buy any more Ring devices for my rentals until such time that they are made usable for a landlord/tenant situation.
Can you please ask your Corporate office about making Ring devices more landlord/tenant friendly? In 2020, there were approximately 43 million housing units occupied by renters in the United States. If even a half a percent of those units get a Ring doorbell at $160 each, that’s over $34 million in revenue to Ring.
@CoreProperties Thanks for your feedback! We actually have a Feature Request board. Feel free to add this and any future feature requests there. This will help us to organize and share your requests with our teams here, as well as allow other neighbors to comment and add interest, all in one place. Feel free to link that post you make in the Feature Request board here so other neighbors that come to this thread can easily find your feature!