Ring Camera Automatically Launch Live View on Echo Show When Motion Detected

UK Topics Security Cams
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#1

I have a Ring Spotlight Camera (not doorbell) and an Echo Show 5 with latest firmware/updates. I can’t get the Echo Show to automatically display live view when the camera detects motion. The settings in the Alexa App are set to “announcement and live view” - and the Echo Show does make an announcement and will show live view if I ask it to with “Alexa, show front door” but I can’t make it automatically display when motion is detected. I have deleted/reinstalled apps and disabled/re-enabled the Ring skill.

Has anyone seen this issue / got any suggestions ? Many thanks.

#2

Hey @RobDownesUK. Happy to clear this up for you! The feature that you’re looking for is not a feature at this time. You can only have an automatic Live View on your Echo Show for the Doorbell and this is only when the Doorbell is rung. There is not a way for your Echo Show to automatically display the Live View upon motion for Doorbells and Cams from Ring. Although, this would be a great feature!

As we value our neighbors’ feedback, we’ve created 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!

2 Likes
#3

Thank you for clarifying - although I wish I knew this before I purchased as I would have opted for a Nest/Google home combo instead which does offer this. I will definitely log a feature request. Thanks again for clarifying, even if it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for !

3 Likes
#4

A number of us have already requested this so please add your request as well then hopefully Ring will implement what should be a standard feature and/or Amazon allow Show $Camera as an action in Alexa routines so that we can set up our own variant. Now Amazon own Ring let’s get the integration sorted please…

@RobDownesUK wrote:
Thank you for clarifying - although I wish I knew this before I purchased as I would have opted for a Nest/Google home combo instead which does offer this. I will definitely log a feature request. Thanks again for clarifying, even if it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for !

2 Likes
#5

@Chelsea_Ring wrote:

Hey @RobDownesUK. Happy to clear this up for you! The feature that you’re looking for is not a feature at this time. You can only have an automatic Live View on your Echo Show for the Doorbell and this is only when the Doorbell is rung. There is not a way for your Echo Show to automatically display the Live View upon motion for Doorbells and Cams from Ring. Although, this would be a great feature!

As we value our neighbors’ feedback, we’ve created 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!

Hi Chelsea / Rob.

I have an echo show and doorbell pro… Could Chelsea point me in the right direction to set up auto live view, specifically …

." You can only have an automatic Live View on your Echo Show for the Doorbell and this is only when the Doorbell is rung. " .

Many thanks.

#6

I was able to set this up using Alexa’s Routines feature.

Ive done it for motion on both the Ring Doorbell 2 and the spotlight cam on the “West Side” (of my house).

I just create a new routine (?Named whatever you like)

In the “When This Happens” tab, select “Smart Home”, and selct the camera name desired, and select “Detected”. It will then take you bcak to the routine setup page.

Then in the “Add action” tab, select “Custom” (at the bottom of the list), enter the following custom phrase; “Alexa. Show me the [Camera Name]”

Note: If your activation word is Echo, Computer, or Amazon, replace Alexa with the proper activation word. Also, the brackets are not needed in the Routine, I only used them to show it was a unique name.

You will be taken back to the Routine setup. At the bottom, in the “From” tab, select “Choose Device”. From the list of available devices, selct the Echo Show you would like the video shown on when the routine is activated.

That’s it…It’s works seamlessly on my Echo Show (2G). Hope it works for yours as well.

3 Likes
#7

Thanks wdwight. Is the routine definitely working on the Spotlight cam or is the event triggering from the doorbell cam ? Does it still work if you disable the doorbell cam ?

#8

Thanks wdwight for the instructions. It works greatly.

1 Like
#9

This works great and like you said you need to use 2G not 5G. I first tried it in 5G and it did not work.

Question could you please add how to set a timer for when the spotlight cams will stop on the echo show 5. It just stays on the camera in live view and if I’m not home will it just stay on that live view until another ring camera is detected? I have my echo show setup to motion for 1 ring doorbell 3 plus. 2 ring floodlight cams and 1 ring spotlight cam and there all working like you described I would just like them to lets say stay on for only 1 minute or how ever long needed before turning off.

Thank you again for this great tutorial.

#10

Hi, on the add action screen I have everything except “Custom” ? Is this feature only available in USA not UK?

#11

On the add new screen it should be the very last one at the bottom. Custom. Hopefully the UK version will have it if not hopefully soon.

1 Like
#12

I have used this settup thats works for my Echo show 5, my fire tv stick 4k and fire HD 10" tablet previos Gen 7th I belive it’s the 2017 model.

Just remember to change the awake word on each device Like one of them to alexa second one to amazon and another to computer and echo. Now some devices don’t have all four the chose from so you will have to figure what awake word you can use and remember lol.

You can turn off the devices in the Routines part of the alexa app using your cell phone.

They are all working about 90% of the time remember nothing the is electronic will work 100% all of the time especially wifi products.

I am not afflicted with ring or amazon just trying to help others.

God bless.

#13

Thanks for reply your reply Sandcarver. I guessed that you were in the U.S. when I scrolled to the bottom only to find “Custom” was not there. Ring really treat us Brits as the poor relations? Who knows when we will ever get the “Custom” option?

#14

If you are still looking for this solution, I figured one out. Ring recently added a “Custom” action to it’s Routine function which can be used to tell an Alexa device to run a command without having to say it. I used this to show a camera in live view on an Alexa Show device when motion is detected without any user prompting or interaction.

Just create a routine that is based on any camera’s motion detected trigger. Add a custom action to that which simply says “Show the <add your camera name> camera”. i.e. “Show the driveway camera”. That will prompt the Alexa device (in the background) to show what the camera sees at that moment.

I also add another routine that is also based on the same cameras motion trigger, but has a wait 5 mins action then another a custom action after that in the same routine that says “Stop”. That will close the camera automatically after 5 mins or whatever time you specify.

I have a couple of routines like this for each camera I own (9) at different times of the day and night for different Alexa devices depending on what room we are typically in during that time of the day/night. For instance, during the day the Kitchen/Family room Alexa Show will show us the back gate camera when it detects motion. Say for instance for Amazon deliveries during the day. At night another duplicate routine runs for our bedroom Alexa show to notify & show us that camera at night for security reasons.

I assume at some point Amazon will add the feature at which time I will just migrate those routines to use the new feature, but in the meantime this solution works flawlessly as long as your internet connection is fast and stable. Otherwise, there have been times when Alexa will struggle to connect to the camera, but the same thing happens when asking Alexa to show a camera with my voice without the routine at times. In those caes I just repeat the command and it usually connects then. I would say the ratio is about 8 out of 10 times it works perfect.

I hope that helps you. Let me know if you have any questions.

BB

1 Like
#15

Hi Bam Bam

Thanks for your advice but I am based in the UK and under “Add Action” we do not have the option to add a “custom” action.

The last “ Add Action” on a list of seventeen that we have is “ Weather”

Many Thanks

PETEHEAT

#16

I presume your now ok … I seem to have this working now in UK. Just got Echo Show 10 for Mum who is a bit slow getting to front door when doorbell rings so advance warning with video triggered by motion detection is great as this means she can get a head start :slight_smile: Have tried with my door bell today 25th Dec and will fit at her place in a couple of days time when more extensive testing will take place. Dave

1 Like
#17

I presume your now ok … I seem to have this working now in UK. Just got Echo Show 10 for Mum who is a bit slow getting to front door when doorbell rings so advance warning with video triggered by motion detection is great as this means she can get a head start :slight_smile: Have tried with my door bell today 25th Dec and will fit at her place in a couple of days time when more extensive testing will take place. Dave