Ring doorbell 3 plus solar charger not working

Hey there, @Lizzy73. Thank you for sharing your experience in detail. With the Solar Charger installed correctly and receiving several hours of direct sunlight, the battery should certainly charge. The best next thing to check here is number of events and wifi network signal. Too many events or wifi signal interference can drain battery quicker than normal, and quicker than a charge can be applied.

Check out our Community post for tips on how to optimize battery performance, to get the most out of your Video Doorbell and Solar Charger. I hope this helps! :slight_smile:

The WiFi is right next to the door so there is no problem with signal. It just does not work!
It’s discharging as quickly as it does when it’s not installed. This charger is a waste of money. So many people have said it doesn’t work, I haven’t read one positive comment yet. Why are you not addressing this??

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Sorry to hear about this @Lizzy73. As we always appreciate our neighbours’ feedback, we will be sure to share this experience with our teams here for further investigation.

If the above troubleshooting steps did not help to resolve your concern, this may need a more in-depth look from our support team. Please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19. This has resulted in longer than normal wait times. Feel free to update us on your results.

Agreed it does not work! I have my doorbell 3 set to disarmed for a week so there are no events at all and my WiFi is perfect. I live in Palm Springs and it’s in a sunny spot. Battery is draining just as fast even with no events! I feel ripped off and because it’s a vacation rental I won’t be back again for 6 months to charge the battery… the whole reason to get a solar charger in the first place! Arggghhh!

I am having the same issue with the DoorBell 3 solar charger. Its just not charging and the Solar Status for the device shows Not Established. Does this solar charger actually do anything? Can I get a refund?

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Hi @Ravenrock. In this case it may be best for you to reach out to our support team directly, as this a neighbor-to-neighbor support forum rather than a direct line to support. You can use the links previously mentioned in this thread to contact our support team.

I bought the doorbell 3 plus and solar charger as a bundle so thought I was getting a great deal.

I fully charged it, have installed it and the solar charger doesn’t appear to be working. Similar to your experience, the doorbell charge is going down day by day.

There are lots of comments about the solar charger not working, but I want to know if I’m supposed to see something in the App that tells me I’ve installed it correctly.

At the moment in Device Health it shows Battery Level 97% and Solar Status “Extend Battery Life with a Ring Solar Charger” which indicates that it doesn’t know it’s attached to the solar charger at all!! That irritates the hell out of me because I carefully followed the instructions step by step.

So can anyone tell me what does the App say when it’s correctly installed?

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Guys. Be advised that the solar charger base for Doorbell 3 has small solar panels and takes at least *6 solid hours of direct sunlight* to be effective. If you don’t have this consider other charging options. Ring graciously allowed me to return the charger with no hassle. I opted for the plug transformer and with a little handy work to install, works nicely.

I’m having the exact same issue and your reply to the other user wouldn’t explain why in the app it says solar is not connected there must be a widespread issue I’ve read thousands of complaints not just here but on the internet and on amazon I spent a lot of extra money that I didn’t have to not have to charge the battery and I just recently bought it fully expected it to work and cannot find the box to return to amazon. Very frustrating!

This is my thoughts exactly! The reply to your op doesn’t solve anything. You can go to your device battery settings and it tells you if the solar charger is connected and I’m sure like mine it is not! This have nothing to do with wifi or battery drain. They have a widespread issue and are failing to address it by claiming user error. Like many I have lost over half of my income due to the pandemic but for my family safety I purchased this so I wouldn’t have to remember to charge and so on only to find out I still have to charge and can’t return it because I threw box away. They need to take responsibility and fix and replace or refund money to people who purchased these. It seems to be a ring 3 issue specifically from most of the complaints I’ve read. I hope you and everyone else including myself get it working or some kind of reimbursement.

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I ended up returning my charger for a refund and bought the ring 24v transformer. It’s not as elegant, and I had to drill though a wall to get power to the ring doorbell 3, but it stays charged now.

Just bought the solar kit for my Ring 3 Doorbell and just shows “Not Connected” all the time. I even factory reset the doorbell but still no joy. I thought it was just a broken solar kit until I found this forum. I’m going to ring Ring Support tomorrow and see what they say but feels like it will be a refund job and getting it hard wired might be the only way to go.

In regards to what others are saying here with the slow charge, surely no matter how much or how little current the solar panels might generate, it isn’t going to work if the doorbell thinks it isn’t connected. Surely the ring device needs to be aware that it is connected to an external power source before it will draw current from it?!

*EDIT - 48 hours later after attaching it and it now shows connected! Be interesting to see what charge I get out of it being as I am in the UK and sun light is not that abundant at the moment.

I have the same issue. Installed everything according to Ring directions, wired solar charger to RVD3 and yet the solar is not registering at all and it is only running off of battery power. What’s up Ring? Are all of these panels defective?

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They are aware of the issue yet every person at ring I talk to acts like this is the first time they’re hearing of this happening. It took me a whole 5 minutes to see thousands of the same complaints. I hope you get it resolved if you kept the box and bought from Amazon return it. I wish I could

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Had the same problem. Left it hooked up and started working after 3 days. Read other posts e same thing happened. Now charges about 1 percent/2hrs direct Sun.

Glad you got it working hopefully mine will start but it’s been about 10 days

Same issue with solar not working or registering after 3 days. Not worth the money.

I just installed mine Wednesday, and the device health showed that it was connected. Thursday it showed that it was charging, but only really charged about 4%. That’s still acceptable to me. But then Friday night I put in a freshly charged battery and now device health says there is no solar charger connectred. What’s the issue? I made sure the batter was well seated in its compartment and still says no solar charger connected. ??
[edit - it’s a doorbell 3 plus]
[edit 2 - Just dismantled the doorbell from the solar charger and resat the connection between it and the solar charger. Secured the doorbell back on the solar mount, put in battery, fastened the faceplate again. Went back in and still says it’s not connected to a solar charger…]

Having similar issue. I did read somewhere that the charger only kicks in when battery it at or below 90%. Mine has however been hovering between 79-82 percent and no more. When it went below 90 it did say charging. It has gotten full sunlight all day long this week.

I live in Florida and installed the whole unit on Wednesday. Plus we had a few cold days below 40 which I know effect batteries. Plan on watching it closely as I have a few other complaints about it.

I have a Doorbell 3 Plus and had similar issues when I first installed the solar panel. What I found was;

  • The device will show ‘Not Connected’ until the battery drops below 90% and will then show as connected and be able to charge the device. See here Charging the Battery for Your Ring Video Doorbell 3 – Ring HelpNote: To maximize battery life, your Ring Video Doorbell 3 does not begin its automated recharging cycle until the battery reaches about 90%’

  • My solar panels (for doorbell and spotlight cams) will show as not connected if the last device health check was done at night. When it’s sunny you can perform a live view of the device which will also perform a device health check. Wait a few minutes and then re-check the solar panel status.

More info here which may help: High failure rate with Ring 3 Solar Panel? - Products / Video Doorbells - Ring Community