Just bought a Ring alarm system with an outdoor siren.
This is probably a really daft question but if we buy a Ring Plug-In Adapter to power the siren would that also charge a quick release battery pack if fitted (with no solar panel or D batteries)? To me it’d make sense if the battery was trickle charged so it could act as a backup power source in the event of mains outage.
The wording on the Ring website seems to read that the battery pack is only charged by either the solar panel or by removing it and connecting it up via USB but this might just be the way I’m misinterpreting it!
Thanks!
Hi @WalterBoots. This Help Center article here goes over all of the power options for the Ring Alarm Outdoor Siren. I hope this clears things up for you.
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Thanks for the replies!
@Tom_Ring - I’d seen that article before and the wording “Can be manually recharged or charged with a Ring Solar Panel” for the “Ring Quick Release Battery Pack” reads (to me!) that it can only be charged manually (i.e. via USB) or if it is connected to the solar panel. I was hoping for some explicit statement somewhere on the website that says “battery will be recharged by the mains supply if connected”.
@groundhogday - ta! Is that from personal experience? Sorry if that question seems a little “off” but it’s always good to confirm things with people that have actually tried things out! As you can seen from my reply in the first part of this post I clearly don’t trust the way it has been worded on the Ring website… 
Anyway I guess we’ll find out for ourselves soon as we’ve ordered the plug-in adapter and quick release battery pack. 
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Okay, a small update.
We’ve received our plug-in adapter and quick release battery pack. When I did a bench test (not installing anything/drilling holes/up the ladder until I know it all works!) with the quick release battery fitted and the plug-in adapter powered up both of the lights (amber and green) on the battery pack lit up, and after several hours the amber light extinguished. So from that comprehensive experiment (!) I think I can conclude that @groundhogday was correct and the battery does indeed trickle charge from the mains.
However… I’m not sure if it’s just the app, or something I’ve done/not done, but the power status icons aren’t showing what I expect. When I first plugged the adapter in it took ages for it to show the green lightning bolt on the siren’s info page and then ages for it to disappear when I unplugged the adapter. I appreciate that when we’ve installed sensors we’ve seen a message saying “Changes might take XX hours to update” (why?) so I’m giving it a little bit of slack on that front. What is annoying is that the quick-release pack doesn’t seem to exist according the app - there’s just the battery symbol with the diagonal strike out across it, and it didn’t change to show any indication of charging or that it was charged (i.e. no green battery symbol c.f. the sensors). When the D batteries were fitted the power symbol changed to a green battery as expected.
What’s confusing (to me) is that, as part of further tinkering/testing, I’ve now had the mains power switched off for a few hours but I can still run the LED tests (either via the app or by pressing the small black button on the siren next to the battery pack) and they work - so either there’s another hidden internal/residual power supply to allow me to do this (which I doubt) or the quick-release pack is actually working but it just doesn’t register with the app.
Sorry for my rambling on. This seems like a good alarm system but the little niggles are beginning to irk… 
I threw my battery in flat and it charged. In my app i see 3 icons - i can see the battery pack in green as well as the d batteries and hardwired.
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@groundhogday - thanks! That’s interesting, and what I was expecting to see at this end (but am not).
I too put the battery in from new (so flat), got the two LEDs when charging and then just the green LED when it had finished charging.
The green LED on the battery pack persists when the mains supply is on but extinguishes when not. Is that what you see too, or does the green LED stay on?
I now have all 3 sources plugged in and I can see a green lightning bolt symbol for the hardwired supply and a green battery symbol for the D batteries; still crossed out battery symbol for the battery pack. The siren is still on the bench, face down with the back cover off and therefore tampered, but I would’ve expected to see green symbols for each power source.
So now I’m starting to think that there’s something wrong with either the siren or the quick release battery pack - don’t know which one to send back! 
green only on the battery would suggest its charged fully - that is normal when you recharge it via micro usb - I would disconnect power and pull out the D Cells and see what happens (do a strobe test as well). That will let you know if the battery is powering the siren or not.
It sounds like the battery is charging fine, so the above will test if it is powering the siren or not - it may be possible one of the pins isn’t contacting the battery, which would point at the siren being at fault.
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My previous tests with the battery pack in but the mains power switched off seemed to suggest the pack was capable of powering the siren on its own as I could perform the LED/siren tests okay.
But… I’ve now got the green battery symbol for the pack! I tried loads of combinations of things and I think the thing that may have resolved it (kiss of death statement…) was having the mains supply off, removing the pack, pressing the reset button on the siren, reinserting the pack and then pressing the reset button again. The battery symbol persists when the mains was reapplied too.
All sounds a bit random and probably only a couple of those actions actually contributed to the fix!
Anyway - thanks @groundhogday for putting up with all of those questions. I’m not getting cocky yet but it seems like it might be working as expected now… 
All I have to do next is fit my sensors properly and not have a PIR trigger in the small hours as it was temporarily sat on a shelf above a radiator!
Quick question - I don’t plan to use the plug in adapter to provide mains but to hard wire the siren with the d batteries removed and to install the quick release battery - will the latter be charged constantly in this configuration?
Hi @user13584. Yes, having the Outdoor Siren hardwired will trickle charge the battery pack in the Siren. This Help Center article here has other frequently asked questions answered as well. I hope this helps .