Using the ring alarm without contact sensors.

Hi all,

Currently, I have a wired alarm system. I do not have a contact sensor on the front door (beacuse of the bevelling on the door, which does not allow for the contact sensor to align correctly) - the entry and exit timers are triggered by a motion sensor in the hallway the front door leads into. The hallway also has the control panel in it.

After reading some reviews and tutorials it seems that the motion sensors have a cooldown timer after they have been triggered. My questions are:

  1. If I set the alarm using the control panel in the hallway with the entry timer motion sensor in - will the alarm not set until the sensor has reset?

  2. The motion sensor in the hall also covers the stairs, if I have an additonal keypad upstairs to set for night mode, can the same entry motion sensor be programmed to activate instantly on Home mode rather than have a delay (which it would need to Away mode).

  3. Must you have a contact sensor on the front door to trigger the entry timer?

Many thanks for your help.

Hi @BHD. Happy to clear this up for you and great questions! When it comes to a device triggering the alarm right away or causing a delay, this can be achievable on both a Contact Sensor or a Motion Detector, so you do not need to have a Contact Sensor on your front door to have it be the only thing that can trigger a delay. When you are setting up the devices, it will ask where the placement for this device should be, but this is to pick from the options to give it a delay or not. For Motion Detectors, labelling one as Entryway will allow for a delay, and labelling it for Room will have it sound the alarm immediately. For Contact Sensors, labelling them Main Door gives the Delay, and then Secondary Door or Window will sound the alarm immediately.

You can have as many sensors set up to Entryway/Main Door as you need, so there is no limitation there. Although, when the sensor is elected for this kind of delay or not, this is going to be for both Home/Away Modes. You would need to change your Entry Delay in Home mode to 0 seconds in order for any of your sensors that would go into an entry delay, to be immediately triggering the alarm. Once set up, this kind of configuration will be made in the Ring app under the Main Menu > Settings > Modes. I recommend playing around with it when you get it to see what works best!

For the Motion Detector’s reset that you were reading about, this is what we call Dwell Time. You can learn more about Dwell Time in our Help Center Article here, as it explains it very well! You can still arm your system, even if you just walked past a Motion Detector, and once the area is cleared for about 3 minutes, it will be able to detect motion from then on, thus potentially setting off your alarm is passed by.