I was disappointed to see that the Ring Desktop app for Mac OS is being scrapped but have been trying to use the web app as a replacement. The problem I’ve been having is that it keeps logging me out after a short time so whenever the doorbell rings I don’t have anywhere near enough time to log in again and open the doorbell camera!
This basically makes the app useless to me - I’m on my computer all day and need to be notified and able to respond to people ringing my doorbell quickly, which is simply not possible with the login timeout that the web app has.
It’s a nice app once you’re in, but sad to say it’s just not fit for purpose as a result of this issue.
I fully understand the need for security etc. so please don’t explain that to me (I’m a software developer myself) but aggressive session timeouts defeat the whole point of the application - this hasn’t been thought through at all.
Is there any plan to solve this issue for the desktop or is Ring essentially a “mobile only” solution now?
If not then PLEASE consider maintaining the current desktop apps to at least provide the basic functionality for us in future.
Note for the development team: if you don’t want to maintain the desktop app UIs, the desktop applications could simply become local token-providers to allow the web app to silently authenticate without requiring the lengthy input of credentials every time?
Suggest you give some very serious thought to retiring the desktop application.
Tried the browser approach using Chrome…it is far from being ready. I depend
on the desktop app (not the phone app) for security and safety. It has to work
or I will be forced to make a technology change. By the way, Safari is also mandatory…
not optional.
Echoing other comments above. Having to login all the time makes the new approach unworkable for me. I had a pretty decent system using Ring as my heads up to let me know when people come into my retail store. Without the app, I no longer get desktop notifications that launch my exterior camera monitor, and now often have to login repeatedly. What a silly step backwards!
What are people switching to? I need something that runs on my desktop for all the reasons noted above. The browser based version takes up a whopping amount of my screen. My wife is disabled and relies on her Mac and desktop Ring for communication with our front entry.
The desktop is still working for me. I’m enjoying for the few days while it lasts. The browser alternative is such a poor replacement, and no matter how good it gets, it will never be as convenient ask the desktop app, which was working perfectly.
Ring, I would consider not touching the desktop app. Just leave it how it is, don’t make any changes but give people the option to use the website as well if they want to. Listening to your customers can go a long way.
So you’re doing away with the desktop app but only going to support certain browsers. You are makng the case that I should stop buying ring devices and start converting over to something like Arlo or one of the others that are coming to the market. This is a very bad idea.
I wanted to share a recent update on the Ring.com experience that we posted in the Ring Updates section here. You can learn more about improvements we are making to the Ring.com experience, and would love any and all feedback on those specific updates in the applicate topic as well. Thank you!
My favorite feature of doing everything through the browser is when you click on the notification and it asks you to log in and then for an authentication code. Then it takes 30 seconds for the video preview to load and by that time whatever caused the motion is gone or the robbers are already in your house stealing your jewelry.
Great job Ring team of fixing something that wasn’t broken and not listening to your customers.
Curious as well what people are switching to. The desktop app worked perfectly fine. The new way with the browser is horrible. I need a better camera solution asap.
First off, push notifications for Firefox are no longer working for me. For Safari, you have to have the browser open and I think it’s not working unless I have the Ring website open.
When the push notifications do work, they don’t function as the desktop app did. There is no live video pop up - with the live video playing. It is a still shot that when clicked takes me to the website.
Is it me or do the push notifications only work when the browser is open to the ring dashboard website? At that point, there’s no need for push notification, is there? Idk, maybe it’s just my machine. I don’t get push notifications regularly. It’s spotty. At least I get a sound on my mobile. But I’m on the Ring site right now writing this and I did not get one push notification while a bunch of activity is taking place in front of the camera.
This is ridiculous. You should only move people from a working product to another when it functions properly. But who cares about customers anymore? I have zero brand loyalty.
By default, you will receive Ring and motion alerts for all devices at your locations. Your notifications will appear on your desktop as long as your Ring session is active, even after you close your Ring.com web tab. Please also ensure you are not in incognito mode or using a VPN.
For more tips on enabling and customizing your notifications, visit our Help Center article below
let me get this right.
first, no more ring smart option with google home app.
Then, unable to login on our ring products on desktop.
What’s next? is ring no longer a smart device anymore and why are we , the customers loosing more and more important tools?? what is the point of buying the product?
smh
I am such an ■■■■■ for upgrading my Ring Doorbell after reading this post and everyone’s reply. And I have some questions for Senior Management who has years of experience with these types of things things…
1 - Does Leadership have experience with things like this decision? Because the dotcom bust had/has many examples of this kind of knuckle head decision making. The announcement reads like the following translation:
Hello. We’re killing the Desktop app. It’s costing us too much money and time to produce and support through a development life cycle. We’re sorry that we offered it all but we have learned (at your expense.) And we’ve just been informed this same thing happened with a desktop app called UDA from Shared Medical Systems. Well how about that, oh and another example and another and another. Gee it looks like our Leadership Team may be inexperienced.
Moving on…Apple Safari users, Umm, we got nothing. You will either stop using our products or download Chrome because we don’t like Apple and their security and processes for a development life cycle. You are already used to it as all companies talk bad about Safari at the Helpdesks of companies. Wait should I have said that we tell users it’s Safari’s fault so download Chrome. Oops I did it again.
But hey look on the bright side. Look at these new features on Ring.com (again except you Apple Safari users so get used to it)….-
2 - Why do the discussion forum posts contain a selectable Like flag and not a Dislike selectable flag? Now that’s creative censorship. Provide a way for single click positives and nothing for negatives. Is it so Leadership can say the following?
Ladies and Gentlemen the numbers are in. We have over nnn Users who have said they like this feature and change compared to not one Dislike. I am now confident we should move forward with these changes.-
By providing a Like flag and no Dislike flag you encourage Leadership to lie.
I’d like to add my dismay that Ring is not planning on keeping the Windows App updated other than security updates. To suggest an alternative is to load up a webpage is both unhelpful and short-sighted.
I think people would like an App running in the background looking for people on the front drive of their properties. They want the convenience of it being ‘there’ and not having to load up a webpage at the start of a day to ensure they get notifications. Come on - it doesn’t take that much to implement!
The discontinuance of the desktop app was a mistake. The two-step auth makes using the web based version useless with the delay it causes. If I had a Ring security system this would make sense, but for a doorbell all I need is access to my video. Please bring the desktop app back and or allow the web app to recognize the device its on and not authenticate.
Can you post WHEN you will discontinue the desktop app? I am old and to have the speed of opening the desktop app when I need to see the front door is invaluable to me since I use computer more than a cell phone. Therefore, having to log into the cell phone to get a code and waiting for ring.com to come up is frustrating and lengthy. We (a gentleman in WA state and I in OK ) purchased the ring because we could readily see who is at our door. We need fast for security, not slow and cumbersome for Ring’s convenience. patsy
Never mind. This browser thing is just not working. I re-installed the old desktop app and hope it continues to perform better than the two browsers, Safari and Firefox, for a long time.
With the desktop app, I see the video pop up easily. Everything works.
With the desktop browsers, the functionality is spotty. No video pop up, just a logo to click and then the browser opens and then I have to enter a 2-factor authorization pin that was sent to my phone. That is not practical, by the time I get to that, whoever was out there is long gone.
