I would like to see the Ring app display a live view of the chosen linked camera when someone rings the intercom & not just a record a video of the event in the linked camera on the intercom answer screen. In fact I personally feel that feature this would be much more usefull than a video recording of the event. As would allow the user to see who is Ringing the intercom in realtime.
I had made this suggestion to customer services who advised in an email reply that I should switch to the camera tab in the Ring app to get a live view of the caller at the intercom when the intercom is rung. But this does not work as by the time you’ve switched to the chosen camera to see who has pressed the intercom button. The intercom feature in the app has timed out & you can no longer answer the intercom call.
Please could you add an auto live view feature in a future update to the Ring app, to display a live view of the linked camera on the intercom answer page in the Ring app?
This gives rise to an interesting problem - what if someone else has a Ring Intercom in the same building, so that there are 2x Ring Intercom in the building. Does this other resident add their own Ring camera overlooking the entrance too, or is there a way to “share” a single Ring camera?
Now imagine there are 20x Ring Intercom in the same building… 20x individual Ring cameras overlooking the entrance? Obviously this idea doesn’t “scale” if multiple residents have their own Ring Intercom and Ring camera, but it’s a nice idea if Ring Intercom users can “share” a Ring camera.
There are however data protection/privacy/lease issues that may need to be taken into consideration - data protection is a big issue when managing CCTV systems, installing a private camera to the exterior of the building may be against an individual’s lease, and may also not be popular with neighbours or the building management etc.
However a proper video-based intercom is maybe a better idea (assuming a future version of Ring Intercom is ever able to support video as well as audio) as even a shared single camera becomes an issue when the owner of the camera moves out (or if it breaks) etc. Supported communal infra is always a better option…
The Ring app already has the ability to share access to any of your cameras with other users. I currently share access to my external Spotlight cam with the other neighbours living in my apartment block.