Ring Doorbell 2 suddenly has phantom motion alerts

Products Video Doorbells
61

while not a doorbell, I’ve started having a similar issue with a stick-up cam that worked flawlessly for years, but has now started believing that there is motion in the garage (so no blowing trees, falling leaves, or passing cars) EVERY HOUR at the :39 or :40 mark, 24 times a day. How is it possible that this is *not* a software issue?

I can’t say when it began because we had construction workers coming and going for over a month, so I turned off motion alerts, but when I turned alerts back on a week or so ago, I now get 24 false alerts every day.

I do realize that this is not the proper forum for me to make progress on this issue, but I offer up my experience here in case others are wondering if they have a mouse on an hourly commute or something.

62

I have an update. If you enable motion verification (new feature that just showed up) that seems to quiet things down. I set that on and motion frequency to normal I have been running it for about 2 days now with no false alerts!

63

That does quiet the false alerts sent to my phone for me.

But, it doesn’t fix how fast the battery is consumed. I’m currently getting about 5-6 days out of a full charge. If I go on vacation for a week, it will certainly be dead before I get back.

The only way this works well as a battery powered device is for the Passive Infrared motion detection to work well. PIR takes very little battery power. But, if the PIR is constantly triggering false alerts, it wakes up the camera and which sends the video off to RING to do motion detection -> massive battery drain.

64

My door bell started doing this in the last week. Alerts every few minutes with no motion. I’ve had the doorbell for a over a year now and its never done this. Nothing in the view of the doorbell has changed and the motion sensor is on the lowest setting it can be. There has to be something in the software causing this and its getting really annoying. I counted one day and had over 100 alerts.

65

Mine is hard wired so not really an issue for me. Has anyone got in touch with Customer Support on this?

66

No, I have not called Ring customer support. After reading accounts of the Ring support suggesting nonsense (adjusting sensitivity) to sending new units, I figured I could ride it out since it was clearly a firmware issue. My assumptions were correct as my unit has been operating, as designed, for months now. No issues. Clearly, Ring is using us all as beta testers for newly released firmware. I would again appeal to Ring to NOT roll-out untested software and to NOT automatically update firmware. Further, a software option should exist to allow users to rollback firmware if problems surface.

67

I did contact support once. They walked me through the reset procedure. That it seemed to fix it for about 12 hours. Then, it came back.

I should probably contact them again, but the battery drain is harder to point to as a clear problem. And, I suspect I’ll just end up spending time to on the phone to have them get me to reset it again.

At this point, I’m trying to decide between a solar charger or ditching it and getting something else.

68

I have mine for over a year now, worked fine the first couple month. Same issue with constant false alerts. I took the battery out and just used it as a decoy for a while. Restarted it with the battery again and it was fine for a short time. Particular at night that thing goes off every couple minutes. This is a total waste of $$ and I’ll try to return it back to Costco. Not sure what they will say but trying is free. Ring should ask how security camera manufacturers figure the motion detection out which works fine on my 6-camera system. I bought the Ring to have a doorbell and a better view inside my porch.

69

We’ve had this doorbell for a year and it’s been fine, about a month ago the random alerts started and they have been all over the place. Some days, I won’t get a single real alert, other days it’s fine, I don’t get it but it’s driving me insane.

70

I have been getting 24 alerts per day at 4 to 6 minutes past the hour, every hour. It seems to stp and start. been going on for several months. my wife turned off the notifications on her phone. what is the use of the motion detector we all paid for if it is so annoying we turn it off. This seems like it has been going on for some time for several people. it might take a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to get them to fix the software issue. Has one been started yet?

71

@AARONTATUM We can help, but will need more information. Can you please post a photo of your motion zones as well as field of view of your device? Thanks!

72

@AARONTATUM We can help, but will need more information. Can you please post a photo of your motion zones as well as field of view of your device? Thanks!

73

I am having the same issue. It is literally going off every few minutes and there is no motion in front of the device. Mine covers a narrow walk way so not a lot of room for misinterpretation.

74

I’ve had mine about 3 weeks For the past 72 hours it has been going off at least every 10 minutes. The only motion we saw one time was the wind blowing the tree.

Defeating the purpose cause now I won’t even look when I get a notification.

Am sending it back :frowning:

75

Why I’m having hard time with my camera,it’s recording for 1 minute and it will stopped for 10 minutes and record again for 1 minutes? It’s frustrating bcoz I’m not seeing any movements continuously! Can somebody help me!

76

Who knows! My RingPro died, likely the power kit but I give up. IDGAF i’m done with Ring!

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77

It’s working now for me.

For the 1st time in many months, my doorbell only alerts on actual movement. And, my battery is still at 90% after 10 days. Previously, the battery would completey die after 5-6 days.

78

Sigh. The phantom motion alerts are back. I’m getting 8-12 an hour again.

79

I finally had to buy a new ring door bell after my Ring 2 would go off with motion detection every 2 minutes. It was draining the battery every 24 hours. I took it off, brought it inside and did all the things that the so called customer service said to do. Would like it to work so I can still use it on my back door. Has anyone actually been able to solve this issue???

The Ring 2 was purchased in March of 2019. Pretty crappy warranty and zero recourse on getting a replacement.

80

I’m so tired. We have had a string of attempted break-ins in my neighborhood with cars stolen and cars being broken into. So everyone is one high alert. Every night starting around 11 PM, my Ring 2 Pro decides it wants to go off LITERALLY EVERY MINUTE. It’s now like the “doorbell that cried wolf”. I fear that the very second that I don’t check it, there will be someone actually attempting to break in my house. This phantom motion alert happens until at least 3 AM and I just want to sleep soundly knowing that my doorbell will alert me if someone is at my door. Even with the sensitivity turned all the way down on a still night (no breeze), no one walking on the sidewalks, no cars in our neighborhood going by, ABSOLUTELY EFFING NOTHING…this stupid piece of tech junk will go off. I’m fed up. I’m in IT and work in a tech company. I know it’s not my internet that’s well over 900+ mbps. I know it’s not a moth or a bug, because I have turned off any surrounding light that will attract them (which it should not be going off because of a bug any way), I know it’s not my app, because it’s up to date. The stupid thing doesn’t even register when I’m the one on the porch. I can come back inside near my phone and 3 minutes later, I hear the chime on my phone. I didn’t know a package was on my porch for hours because it NEVER alerted me that the FedEx guy was actually face to face with it from where he placed my package.
So far, just tonight, (get ready, I’m going to list the timestamps of my alerts) this thing has falsely detected motion at the following times:
11:01, 11:02, 11:03, 11:04,11:05, 11:20,11:23, 11:32, 11:33
(Just when I think it’s actually going to stop…We hit the AM)
12:13 , 12:32, 12:33, 1:11, 1:12, 1:12:38, 1:13:15, 1:13:54, 1:14, 1:15, 1:17, 1:18, 1:21, 1:22:04, 1:22:42, 1:31, 1:32:09, 1:32:48, 1:43, 1:44, 1:45, 1:45:45, 1:46, 1:47:02, 1:4740, 2:14 AM…
If that made you tired reading it, just know that I am just as tired having it falsely tell me something is there and absolutely FAILING to tell me when someone is actually at my door.
This product started off pretty good. It never allowed me to see in real time who was at my door since it greeted me with a black screen (the entire point), but it did tell me when someone was there. Suddenly, it goes berserk and alerts me almost every minute and I just want to sleep. Absolute trash.

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