Largely due to home “confinement” as a consequence of the COVID pandemic, I have been close to my personal home computer on a daily basis. To spare the battery on my smartphone, I have been logging into the Dashboard feature on the Ring website (ring.com/users/sign_in) from my home computer to view motion alerts at another address where I have a Protection Plus plan. I recently had online login access to my Ring account blocked with the following online response: “Too many attempts. Please wait a few minutes, then try again.” I wasn’t aware that there was an account login limit. After reaching out to the Ring technical support team, I was made aware of a system algorithm that automatically blocks User access to their accounts for a 24-hour period if it detects “too many” login attempts. First, I have to point out that “24 hours” is not “a few minutes”. Secondly, I can understand having such a systemic feature to block “bots”, but it does not account for those, like me, who were locked out of their Ring accounts with knowledge of such a User constraint, or without a cautionary warning. Unless there is a valid reason for having such a system algorithm, I believe that it should be eliminated or modified so as not to “victimize” Ring users.
The following ring.com login improvements might be considered:
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Unless there is a valid reason to maintain this “lock-out” algorithm, eliminate it. This will serve to encourage User access (rather than discourage it).
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If the algorithm needs to be maintained, inform Users of the login limitations with some sort of message (on the Login page) regarding login limitations. Something like – “You have ___ login attempts remaining within the next ___ hours/days”. Another possibility might be an added feature wherein the User can demonstrate that their access attempt is not originating from a “bot”. Amazon uses such a feature.