TLDR - Beyond Frustrated - wouldn't buy again

Welcome to the Ring Community Ring Updates
1

So, it’s been about 20 minutes since the mail deliver guy parked his truck in the driveway, got out, walked up the driveway towards the house, walked back to his truck, and then drove away. It’s entirely possible that I will get a notification in another 20 minutes because my wife and I have taken walks around the neighborhood, leaving and returning via the driveway, and got notifications 40 minutes after we left. Full disclosure, we did get immediate notification about cat that ran across driveway this morning, even though I have people only setting on driveway cam.

About a year ago I bought a Ring Doorbell 2 for front door, wired Floodlight cam for driveway, two spotlight cams for the sides of the house, two chimes for inside, a chime pro, and a range extender signal booster. Generally speaking, the cameras record really well so I can see all the activity from the night when I check in the morning (cats, bats, racoons, spider, spider webs) even though I have sensitivity and motion set to low sensitivity, frequency, and people. I admit I did turn off notifications from two spotlight cams on sides of house so I could get some sleep. I get notifications for a lot of non-humans, and not many from humans. The notifications I do get from humans is almost always late, after they’ve left (think UPS, FedEx, mail, neighbors). This is both from at home on wireless or using cell connection anywhere (AT&T and Verizon). Live View connects about half the time. About a quarter of the time it takes over a minute to connect. About a quarter of the time it connects in less than a minute. From anywhere.

I have good wireless network connectivity, good network speed 100mbs at the wall, lot’s of Apple devices (hmmm, maybe that’s the problem ;-). I have no problems with any other technology in the house. The support folks I contacted in the past have been responsive with a boatload of technical instructions and links to check and try, mostly uninstall, reinstall, power off and on, disconnect and reconnect, wireless, bluetooth, router, devices, signal strength and speed. Usually means climbing up ladders with phone in hand to to manage ring device, ring app, wireless settings.

The positive is that if someone comes to the house, I will have a video recording of it (i.e., I can see in the morning who broke in last night), and there is the deterrent effect if they notice the lights come on and the doorbell and walk away, which has happened justifying the cost.

3 Likes
2

Sorry to hear about this experience @Sidewinder. You’ve certainly checked all of the necessary variables for this to work. It sounds like our support team did a great job to provide advanced solutions as well. If you have not already checked, please ensure there is no VPN enabled on your mobile devices, and that there are no Modes or Motion Scheduling options in your Ring app that might be effecting notifications.

I recommend also trying our Rapid Ring app as it is designed to provide the quickest access to live view. The Rapid Ring app also has a notification option worth testing, to see if this improves notification delivery.

If this concern persists, rest assured that we have shared this with our team who is investigating this as we speak. If there’s anything else I can help with in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to ask!

3

Thank you for your reply and suggestion, Marly_Ring,

I have installed the Rapid Ring app and I reset motion, mode, schedule settings. The Live View connect time for all cameras after installation has been five seconds or less. Will monitor notifications and see how it works.

4 Likes
4

I’ve had a Ring doorbell for more than two years now, and I’ve come to believe it’s essentially useless. LiveView on the doorbell almost never works.

Was excited that Amazon has written the new RapidRing app. Tried it a few times with good success. But once again, spin/hang/timeout on the third try.

1 Like
5

Have you reached out to support @barryhf to try some more in depth troubleshooting? Sounds like some sort of connectivity issue. Thanks!

6

The Rapid Ring App works very well at home, using the wireless, notifications coming in very quickly, and viewing within 5 seconds. It’s still hit and miss when on cell service. Notifications come in very quickly, however, when viewing, I often get response that there is no internet connection.

The frequency of notifications using People Mode is now much more reasonable on all devices. I’m still getting the occasional cat in the driveway notification at midnight, but really nothing to complain about overall. (I presume this is Ring system mods vs Rapid Ring App).

The original Ring app seems to be even less responsive when attempting to view recordings. Annoying, but not critical for me. The system as a whole is currently working acceptably to me.

7

@barryhf wrote:

I’ve had a Ring doorbell for more than two years now, and I’ve come to believe it’s essentially useless. LiveView on the doorbell almost never works.

Was excited that Amazon has written the new RapidRing app. Tried it a few times with good success. But once again, spin/hang/timeout on the third try.

Hello @barryhf and @Sidewinder ,

As for intermittent, or delayed, or no-connection difficulties accessing “Live View”, most of the time this is Wi-Fi related. Ring Video requires a much higher Wi-Fi data-stream connection, and if not, you may encounter problems (Slow or No “Live View” connections, Black-screen videos, etc.). A strong signal connection doesn’t necessarily mean a good data connection. I too was having intermittent/delayed Live View connection and occasional Black Videos issues with one of my cameras. Now, both my Live View connection and Black Videos not longer occur and Live View is established rapidly every time! The link below shows how I solved my problem:

https://community.ring.com/t5/Ring-Community/Inconsistency/m-p/54094

I hope you find this information useful :slight_smile:

8

Exact same experience I have had. I get all the notifications I don’t want (spiders and bugs), and none that I need - people entereing my garage, approaching my door. I’m a techie - our specs are fantastic, the wifi is exceptional. Can’t do a live check on demand if my life depended on it - metaphorically and literally. I appreciate the humor with which you described your experiences, because I resonated with every single point, and I have just had to laugh.