Motion not picked up until person at front door

Products Video Doorbells
#1

I have my Ring Doorbell 2 mounted pointing straight out from my door towards my front drive and ultimately the street and drive goes on for about 110 feet so cars passing at the end of the drive are not a problem for motion detection.

I have the app set to pick up movement at 30 feet or more, motion verification enabled, motion zone set at maximum and all three zones set to on and people only mode switched on.

However, motion is not detected until the person is at the front door and when that person leaves, basically only recording a small facial section and the back of the visitor.

This is not what the Doorbell was bought for and if it doesnā€™t pick up people approaching it is basically useless.

Is there anything further that needs doing to correct this?

5 Likes
#2

I have the same problem. I wish somebody had an answer for us.

2 Likes
#3

Hey neighbors! Could you share a video example of this happening? Also, does this seem to happen all the time (if you test this by going outside towards the street and walking up) or just every once in awhile?

#4

This appears to be happening all of the time.

Hereā€™s the link to a video (hopefully Iā€™ve done it correctly)

https://ring.com/share/6818862766924734378

2 Likes
#5

@Spike1 Thank you so much for that video! It definitely looks like you should have an additional couple seconds of what was happening as the delivery man walked up. A couple things to note on this. It seems the wall to the right may be inhibiting the motion detection, as that is just a still picture most of the time, unless someone were to walk over to the wall. Could you test out your motion detection when you turn off this zone? You will turn off the zone through the motion settings! After doing this, see if this helps out when people are walking up to the Doorbell. Please note that you may be running into concerns of people that are coming up from the right side of your Doorbellā€™s view, from where the wall is blocking, and itā€™s possible that they walk up fast enough/cut in from that side by from the front of your car, only leaving fractions of a second for them to get to your Doorbell, since this is the way your driveway is set up!

Another thing to note is the new features that we have. Motion verification was created to help with motion events actually being recorded or not, if it was deemed that it wasnā€™t an actual motion, it is not recorded. This could in turn slow down the recording start time, as the device now needs a second or two to process if the event of motion is an event to be recorded. I would say test how your motion detection is with this off! Itā€™s possible turning this off may also help.

Last thing that I would note here is your RSSI. If you have a RSSI number that is slightly higher, it means your camera is having a harder time connecting to your home wifi network to record and process the videos, which could result in video cutoffs, stuttering, or poor video/audio quality. This latter doesnā€™t seem like it should be quite a concern for you, but I do note that it looks like you have a brick home, which the connection the Doorbell has become weaker the stronger of materials that are in between that and the wifi access point itā€™s connected to. Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

#6

I have tried all of your suggestions which havenā€™t improved the recordings and they still miss the beginning of the approach.
Itā€™s very good at recording people walking away from the door but not very good at capturing them walking up to the door.
Even when a person is eventually picked up the image appears dark at the start as if the camera is waking up which also prevents a clear picture.
Another issue is that if a person leaves the property and somebody else arrives immediately afterwards the camera does not record the person arriving. Itā€™s as if the camera has shut down for a set time at the end of the recording.
All in all I have to say that Iā€™m not very impressed with this camera and am thinking of returning it.

5 Likes
#7

@Spike1 Have you adjusted your motion frequency at all? This may be the missing key to the puzzle because if your motion frequency is at standard, please switch this over to frequent!

By default, all Doorbells and Cams are put at standard to help with battery life, but frequent is an option because, if motion is still being detected, or detected right after one motion event just happened, then the device will continue to run and record another event for you. On standard, it will have a small ā€œcooldownā€ time period to ween out excessive motion.

If you donā€™t mind giving that a try for me, and if all else still fails, please reach out to my support team over the phone here to go over the situation with them!

#8

@Cappy - Iā€™m not sure if this has totally rectified the problem yet, but have you checked your RSSI number in the app under devices>doorbells>device health>signal strength?

I had an RSSI of -62.

A lower -number is a better signal strength and I have just placed a wi-fi extender (not a ring chime extender) to within about 10 feet of the doorbell with no brickwork between the extender and the doorbell and now have an RSSI of -40.

Hopefully, this will help and the recording will start earlier, but I will have to run a few tests to see.

1 Like
#9

I have this same issue. The ring doesnā€™t pick up people until they are about 7-8 feet away. This happens all of the time.

My RSSI is -46

My ring is on a front porch. I have three steps up from ground level.

It will pick up cars on my street all day long (approximately 35 feet away), but it wonā€™t pick up a person walking up until they step on the bottom step.

I bought the wedge kit. Put two wedges on it to make it face at a downward angle. This made it worse.

All of my motion zones are on.

Motion sensitivity is set to max.

Motion verification is off.

Motion setting is set to frequent.

Based upon my experience, I would not recommend this device to anyone and would return it if I possibly could. Iā€™ve spent too much money on this system for it to not work as advertised.

2 Likes
#10

I have the same issue. I have been a loyal fan of Ring for years but this is disappointing. And Iā€™m getting tired of upgrading.

@SDB wrote:

I have this same issue. The ring doesnā€™t pick up people until they are about 7-8 feet away. This happens all of the time.

My RSSI is -46

My ring is on a front porch. I have three steps up from ground level.

It will pick up cars on my street all day long (approximately 35 feet away), but it wonā€™t pick up a person walking up until they step on the bottom step.

I bought the wedge kit. Put two wedges on it to make it face at a downward angle. This made it worse.

All of my motion zones are on.

Motion sensitivity is set to max.

Motion verification is off.

Motion setting is set to frequent.

Based upon my experience, I would not recommend this device to anyone and would return it if I possibly could. Iā€™ve spent too much money on this system for it to not work as advertised.

@SDB wrote:

I have this same issue. The ring doesnā€™t pick up people until they are about 7-8 feet away. This happens all of the time.

My RSSI is -46

My ring is on a front porch. I have three steps up from ground level.

It will pick up cars on my street all day long (approximately 35 feet away), but it wonā€™t pick up a person walking up until they step on the bottom step.

I bought the wedge kit. Put two wedges on it to make it face at a downward angle. This made it worse.

All of my motion zones are on.

Motion sensitivity is set to max.

Motion verification is off.

Motion setting is set to frequent.

Based upon my experience, I would not recommend this device to anyone and would return it if I possibly could. Iā€™ve spent too much money on this system for it to not work as advertised.

1 Like
#11

We are having the same problem. Unfortunatly we canā€™t send the picture of something itā€™s not doing. If it was taking videos of anything further than the porch we would be happy to provide a picture or video.

#12

An update on my previous post. I get motion alerts all day long of cars driving down my street, but the car pulling into my driveway doesnā€™t get picked up and the Amazon delivery guy doesnā€™t get picked up on the Ring until heā€™s 6 feet from my door. I have provided pictures and videos to Ring while on the phone with customer support.

Ironically, I get videos of cats on my porch in the middle of the night, but picking up people during broad daylight seems to be an issue.

Iā€™ve called customer support twice. I spent an hour on the phone the first time. The second time (in addition to not picking up people) the Ring would not connect to my existing hardwire doorbell and make it ring even though the first one did. The lady I spoke to wanted me to send her a picture of the doorbell wiring and the transformer. I refused. Why did the first one work if my stuff is bad? They sent me two (yes, count them two) new doorbells to replace the first and second ones. Neither pick up people until they are very close to the device. Customer support told me the device is set up correctly, but canā€™t figure out why it wonā€™t pick up people. Thatā€™s why they sent me the first replacement. But Iā€™m on my third device with the same settings and no resolution.

If I could return this device for a refund I would. I will never buy another one and I will never recommend to anyone else. This device is a waste of money.

Ring people: if you are monitoring this, respectfully, you have some sort of an issue here.

#13

Iā€™ve reported the same issue on another thread.

#14

I have the same exact problem as the original person who asked the question. To answer your question, it happens now every time. It seems to be getting worse and I canā€™t remember if it has ever shown me the face of a person walking up my walk. Even though I have it set to catch only people it gets the garbage truck driving by every Tuesday and Friday.

I have the videos but canā€™t get the file to upload to this link. If you can either tell me how to convert a mp4 file to one of the acceptable Ring community files-great. If not I just need an email address so I can send it. Sorry for not being so savvy with all this.

#15

Same problem here except it did not start until the latest software update adding the motion zones.

Under the previous version with the adjustable arc I was able to pick up a vehicle entering my driveway but eliminate the road traffic. After the latest update with the motion zones nothing is detected until a person is at the door.

Iā€™ve adusted the zones and even extended all three to include the road without success. The advanced has been shut off but now the motion zone arcs are not adjustable, only a left-center-right section may be turned on or off so that does not help because it does not now extend far enough. The sensitivity has been maximized and people only mode is off to no help.

The unit has been deleted from the app and reinstalled, the RSSI is -62.

Important to note is that this doorbell worked exactly as expected until this last update when I noticed it did not detect a vehicle entering our driveway.

Not pleased with its current performance.

#16

I just installed my Ring Doorbell 3 on Friday and I had the same issue with the motion detection as everyone on this thread. Motion would be detected for cars and would not pick up anyone walking up my walkway until they reached the doorbell. I live in a row home and my next door neighbor (we share the same walkway) wouldnā€™t trigger the motion detector but the neighbors doors away would trigger the motion detector. I played with every option available. And no resolution after trying them all. It took a full 24 hours trying out all options. Today I decided to Google the problem and I found a troubleshooting guide on Ring.com. It suggested that the WiFi connection could cause the motion detection to not function properly if the connection is not strong. I took the WiFi test in the Ring app and failed miserablely using my old WiFi router Netgear. Download speed was less than 1 mbps (0.61) and Upload speed was more than 1 mbps but only at (12.68). I changed my WiFi to my Verizon Fios network and passed with flying colors. I had to hit the reset button on the Ring Doorbell before the WiFi could be changed. Iā€™m thankful I had another WiFi network to use. My Netgear router is over 4 years old but it was the first network to choose during the Ring setup and I didnā€™t change it
at the time. Download speed was 255.6 mbps and the Upload speed was 153.3 mbps using Verizon Fios router. Motion detector is working perfectly now. Iā€™m able to capture someone walking up the walkway before they make it to my Doorbell. Try the WiFi test it could resolve your issues as well.

#17

I wish another WiFi connection would fix it. A full reinstall with a reconnection to my Fios connection was established without any improvement in detection.

Currently I have the advanced motion detection enabled with all three zones maxxed out and still it only detects when someone is at the door. That is with maximum sensitivity.

As mentioned in an earlier post the original detection zone set with an arc was able to detect a vehicle entering the driveway off the street. This is using the same internet connection.

#18

Within the last couple days I totally removed the device, clicking on the ā€˜remove deviceā€™ pushbutton within the app, and started again (like day 1). The arc came back ! I totally agree. 60 days ago when I first started playing with this bell I thought it worked better. Unfortunately , even with the arc motion does not seem to work as it once did. Whatā€™s worse, sometimes it seems to work properly and sometimes not. I have had to create a custom motion zone. Somewhere on this forum I posted a historical summary of my effortsā€¦

#19

I think the ring doorbell actually does ā€˜seeā€™ all of the motion we want it to capture.

Yesterday at one point I tested walking into my desired motion zone. For the briefest of moments the event history held two video segments. One as I entered the zone the other as I was near the doorbell. The first video rapidly removed itself, leaving a video showing what we are all reporting here.

Also, I think the motion ā€˜arcā€™ provides a clue. The arc has three segments near the top and a fourth region near the base. When video is recorded showing movement near the bell it is seems to be picked up at the very point where the fourth region is entered.

#20

Thanks for the info but if the doorbell does not notify us when it detects the motion it is not operating as advertised.

What happens when you turn on Advanced Motion Detection? Iā€™ve made every adjustment imaginable with maximum sensitivity and have yet to get reliable detection like it was before the last software update. Disabling the Advanced Motion Detection now only gives three areas without any adjustment except for an on/off which does not revert to previous performance.