The quality of the night vision in new Spotlight Cam Battery is unacceptable. I have two cameras installed in the same spot - Spotlight Cam Battery and Ring Stick Up Cam Battery. The Stick Up camera shows bright b/w picture at night, while Spotlight Battery shows very dim picture, like the IR lights are not even functioning for it (I can see red dots on its face, though).
Just to make the conversation faster: yes, I tried to wipe the lens, I tried to reset the cam and to re-pair - no dice. HDR on / off doesn’t seem to make any difference either.
Here is the screenshots of the Spotlight Battery (top) and Stick Up Battery (bottom):
Is this something fixable via software, or I need to return the camera? The Spotlight Cam Mount seems to have good night vision, btw. I probably, will return the battery version (back to Amazon, will leave bad review for sure) and will get another Mount version.
Sorry to hear about this, @artyom17! Night vision should operate the same on all of our devices, although a low battery on a battery powered Camera might operate differently until fully charged. As long as the battery is fully charged, the night vision experience should be comparable for each Ring Camera. Of course, the voltage powered or plug in powered Cameras do have a colored night vision setting that might be worth checking, to see if this is why your low light image adjustment looks different on battery powered models. Also, a quick note that HDR automatically disables at night, which might explain why no difference is seen there.
Considering a difference in environment or variables such as lighting can help. Spotlight Cameras are intended to illuminate with events, so it is important to test night vision with the lights on and off for a difference in image quality. If you feel that the Camera in question is simply not performing as desired, and as compared to your other powered Cameras, feel free to check in with our support team for a closer look.
Please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19, so this has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support.
Both of the cameras are installed at the same spot with the same light conditions. Both cameras are BATTERY powered, see my first post. Moreover, the Spotlight Cam Battery had 100% charge with the charger connected to it.
I don’t see any options for colored night vision for Spotlight Cam Battery, btw. I can see this option only for Spotlight Cam Mount (assuming it also exists for Wired).
So, there are NO differences in environment. Turning the weak light of the camera ON makes things much worse, btw, the image becomes almost completely dark.
No events improve the night vision of Spotlight Cam Battery (and it would be just strange: the night vision exists to detect events, not other way around!).
It actually looks like an issue with exposure rather than with the night vision itself. When I click on Live View, I can see a flash of properly exposed image first and then it dims itself. Same with the light on: I can see colored image first (for a fraction of the second) and then it turns almost completely black). Looks like wrong aperture, ISO or timing (i.e. - exposure).
UPDATE: I got contacted by Ring Customer Service and I was offered to exchange the Spotlight Battery Cam to Spotlight Wired one. Couldn’t be happier with the exchange, wired works good.
Look at the pics, they show the difference in infrared light for Battery and Wired/Mount/Spotlight versions. The Battery variant has infrared lights on SIDES of the camera, while the rest of the family has them in FRONT. I believe this is the reason why the night vision is so poor for the battery version.
I am pretty happy with the replacement, however, it seems to me that the Spotlight Battery Cam has issues with its design.
Special thanks to Ring Support (to Jess, in particular), didn’t expect that level of support!
I’m fairly new to Ring Spotlight Battery cameras. I installed 2 Floodlight cameras and they are great. The first spotlight battery camera is in the front of our home and it’s just fair for night vision but the one I just installed to monitor the side gate is absolutely worthless. I cannot see anything. It’s all dark. What’s the problem?
Hi @FredK. Thanks for sharing the image of what you are seeing. From the looks of things, it looks like much of your Spotlight Cam is shining on the wall to the right. I would try to angle it away from the wall so that the infrared lights are not reflecting off of the wall so much and causing the dark spot where you need it most. Try activating the Live View and then moving the camera around to see how it affects the brightness.
