Ring best settings for housemate privacy?

Hi there,

Just bought and installed a 2020-edition Ring2 Video Doorbell. In general, we’re very happy with its functionality.

We are, however, a household of three independent adults, and on the first night the doorbell was installed one member of the household had a… nighttime visitor. Needless to say, it was viewed as something of an invasion of privacy when the doorbell (without having been rung) notified the other two members of the household that “There is a person at your front door”, and, furthermore, recorded the visitor waiting and entering the house — AND indeed, leaving the house some time later…

Does anyone have any suggestions for the best way to set up the Ring to avoid such intra-household invasions of privacy?

As of now, all I can determine is to use the honour system to both:

(a) tell each other we have turned off push notifications for motion events; and

(b) promise not to paw pruriently through the (necessarily shared) video history?

Thoughts? Thanks very much!

G.

Hey there, @RandomOfAmber. This is quite an interesting scenario, in which you’ve done a great job to find a creative solution, with honoring privacy in usage. At Ring, we value your security and your privacy, and advise to only share the most trusted people to your ‘Ring of security’.

In addition to shared users, I recommend also checking out the Control Centre options. We’ve seen neighbours add multiple devices to one owner account so that they can control settings and features from different places in their home, or by different people. It is not advised to give out owner credentials, however, if multiple devices are logged in to one account, the Control Centre will allow the owner to view and remove all client devices if needed.

Check out our help centre article describing Shared User capabilities, as well as our article about Control Centre, for more information. The Privacy Zone feature can also provide a form of privacy, if setup prior to an event. Any use of these features will provide more options, but will likely not obtain everything you are looking for. The best solution here may be to add an additional Doorbell or Camera that can be separately owned. Feel free to keep an eye on this thread for any suggestions left by other neighbours! :slight_smile:

Hello @RandomOfAmber ,

As for the first part of _“tell each other we have turned off push notifications for motion events” _ you can use your settings to automatically inhibit the text-type ‘pushed’ Notifications for certain times of the day (evenings), and therefore no need to “tell each other we have turned off push notifications for motion events”. Using the Owner email account to log into the Ring App, select main menu (3 horizontal lines, upper-left-corner of Dashboard) > Devices > your doorbell > Motion Settings > Motion Schedule > name/title your rule, such as like “Evening Privacy” and then select the days and times that you want to stop all Notifications for all three adults in your household > SAVE (upper right corner).

This way, the Notifications are automatically inhibited for all three adults in your household during the days of the week and times where privacy issues are likely to occur, and yet outside those day/time periods, you will automatically get the desired Notifications for activities such as daytime mail package deliveries. But of course, you will not get Notifications of security type motions events that also occur during this “Evening Privacy” period too.

As for “promise not to paw pruriently through the (necessarily shared) video history” the above setting just stops the Notifications ‘pushed’ to your Apps, but the Video Doorbell will still record and save video history recordings that are triggered by motions in accordance with your App settings. If you do not have any subscription for a Ring Protect Plan and are past the “one-month free trial” period, there then will be NO stored videos for the other housemates to “paw pruriently through”, since only “Live View” and ‘pushed’ text-type notification/App Alert-Tones sounds will be available without a subscription plan.

During your “one-month free trial” period and/or if you have purchased a “Ring Protect Plan” (in order to store/view past videos), you do not have to completely rely on the honour system. You can use the Ring Alarm Modes to modify the behavior of your camera devices (you can use the Alarm Modes, even if you do not have a Ring Alarm system). The Owner of the Ring account (I assume you) can modify the settings: Main Menu > Devices > your doorbell > and then toggled OFF “Record Motion”. Then select “Mode Settings” and select “Disarmed” and on your Doorbell and then toggle OFF “Motion Detection”, but you should leave “Live View” toggled ON (so everyone can still answer/view when any visitor pushes your doorbell button) and then click “SAVE” (upper right corner). You will notice your Dashboard view of your Doorbell will be ‘blurred’ while in Disarmed alarm mode. Now, because of these setting, whenever you have Dashboard’s “Disarmed” selected on the App alarm modes (when you are home inside), your Doorbell will not ‘push’ any Notifications NOR record/save any videos to paw through. But if you want then desire/change back to the normal store/view past videos (either while you are present in the house or all three of you are gone away from the house), change the alarm mode by simply selecting either “Home” or “Away” alarm mode (since you left those on the default settings of toggled ON “Motion Detection” and “Live View”. With “Home” and “Away” alarm modes selected, this will override the doorbell’s OFF Record Motion toggle setting and your doorbell will indeed record/store videos.

As an important note, only the Ring “Owner” should use their personal email to log into the Ring account, although the Owner login can be used simultaneously on several Apps. The other two occupants should use their Ring mobile Apps logged in as “Shared Users” which the “Owner” can give access permission to Ring devices. It is not a good idea to have several people all using the same Owner login to get into the Ring App on their mobile phones. Because then any of the 3 occupants can change any of the master settings. Shared Users only have limited settings, such as the sound choices for App Alert-Tones sound on their mobile. But the Owner can give permission for any of the other house occupants to access Ring devices and change the alarm modes, and if they do switch the current Alarm Mode, the other occupants will be instantly aware on their App that the doorbell’s ability to record “History Event” videos has been turned back on (enabled back).

If all three of your are currently logging on to their mobile phone using the same master “Owner” email/password, and you do wish to utilize the “Shared Users” feature: On Owner app > main menu > Control Center > Shared Users > select your location account address ‘Manage’ > add a new Shared Owner by tapping the blue “Plus sign” Icon (lower-right-corner) > Add Shared User > type the other housemate’s email address and “Send Invite” to their email. Of course the other housemates will need acknowledge the “Invite” and to create their own Ring login account at ring.com (you can make a Ring account even if you do not own any Ring device). Once they accept your invitation, go back to your COntrolCenter & Shared Users to add their name and toggle enable/manage the new added Shared Users to now have permission to the Video Doorbell and Alarm Base Station (for mode changes). And because they knew your email & password login, now go change your password by: main menu > account > password change > enter current password and then a new password.

I know this all these setting are confusing, since you just installed this new Ring Video Doorbell, but it is not as bad as it might appear once you start playing with these settings/features.

For more information about Ring Protect Plans:

https://en-uk.ring.com/pages/protect-plans

Whew! Well, I hope you find this information useful and all the housemate’s privacy is restored satisfactorily. :slight_smile:

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Hi @Boone,

Thank you very much indeed for your time in writing such a thoughtful, detailed, and very helpful response.

But of course, you will not get Notifications of security type motions events that also occur during this “Evening Privacy” period too.

I had come across this setting in my perusal of Ring’s features, but was leery of it for precisely the reason you give here. This rather undercuts the more security-focused side of Ring’s feature-set; but as you say, it is clearly one of the few ways available to make the Ring at least _slightly _more housemate-privacy-friendly during those evening periods. (Just a shame that the midnight-to-3am windows is ALSO probably the likeliest time for security-related incidents to occur! Ah, well.)

If you do not have any subscription for a Ring Protect Plan and are past the “one-month free trial” period, there then will be NO stored videos for the other housemates to “paw pruriently through”, since only “Live View” and ‘pushed’ text-type notification/App Alert-Tones sounds will be available without a subscription plan.

This is an excellent point. Frankly, I hadn’t realised we were ‘activated’ for our Ring Protect Plan trial period simply by installing the Ring. I figured we needed to, you know, tell them we wanted to try it. So it hadn’t occurred to me that the non-Plan Ring doesn’t actually store video AT ALL for any period of time. (Is that really the case? even video of doorbell-ring events?) In any case you’re right: THAT will certainly solve much of the problem, because – having had the conversation with my housemates – it seems they’re not that super-keen on the security side of Ring anyway, and would prefer simply to have the doorbell functions. So probably at the end of the trial period we’ll just… transition quietly to a more private usage of Ring.

You can use the Ring Alarm Modes to modify the behavior of your camera devices (you can use the Alarm Modes, even if you do not have a Ring Alarm system). […] Then select “Mode Settings” and select “Disarmed” and on your Doorbell and then toggle OFF “Motion Detection”, but you should leave “Live View” toggled ON (so everyone can still answer/view when any visitor pushes your doorbell button) and then click “SAVE” (upper right corner). […] Now, because of these setting, whenever you have Dashboard’s “Disarmed” selected on the App alarm modes (when you are home inside), your Doorbell will not ‘push’ any Notifications NOR record/save any videos to paw through. But if you want then desire/change back to the normal store/view past videos (either while you are present in the house or all three of you are gone away from the house), change the alarm mode by simply selecting either “Home” or “Away” alarm mode (since you left those on the default settings of toggled ON “Motion Detection” and “Live View”. With “Home” and “Away” alarm modes selected, this will override the doorbell’s OFF Record Motion toggle setting and your doorbell will indeed record/store videos.

THIS is an absolutely brilliant idea. I’m only sorry not to have thought of it myself! (I confess, I had dismissed ‘Modes’ out of hand for the very reason that we don’t have any Ring alarms or other cams in the house, as of now, so thought it a pointless feature.) I’ve gone ahead and done this, and it certainly goes a long way in ameliorating the privacy issue.

Once again, the only real ‘problem’ is of course the disabling of Ring’s security-focused feature-set; but again, evidently that’s not really a priority for my household anyway, evidently!

Again, I’m really grateful for your help. I’m sure your post will help others, too!

Cheers,

G.

2 Likes

@RandomOfAmber ,

Howdy G. :slight_smile:

Thank you for your kind words. I found the Ring Community forum very helpful to me before, and I enjoy ‘paying it back’ too. With all of us other Ring owners, we as “Ring Neighbors” have collectively run across issues that sometimes someone else has already figured out a solution to, and that it might have never occurred to us by ourselves. Also for me, it’s the challenge of solving a puzzle that I enjoy, and you indeed did present a good puzzle I hadn’t considered . . . a good ‘head-scratcher’ for me. LOL

Yes it is true that you did automatically ‘activated’ your one-month-free-trial Ring Protect Plan when you installed the Ring. You can check the details of your trial Protect Plan: main menu > Plan > see your details. It is also true that if you do not purchase a subscription plan, and after your trial period, that you indeed will not have any storage, and therefore no past videos or snapshots at all. Your Doorbell will still work, and have the ability to “Live View” and interact (talk/hear) visitors, receive text-type 'pushed Notifications & App Alert-Tone sounds, tailor your motion-zones, and still have your standard 1-year warranty. If many months later you change you mind, you can easily use you App and start a subscription.

https://en-uk.ring.com/pages/protect-plans

I’m glad you liked my solution of utilizing the Alarm Modes to effect the behavior of your Doorbell. When you or housemates see “Disarmed” on their App Dashboard, they know the Doorbell’s recording ability is off (when setup per my previous post). And if someone does select “Home” or “Away” alarm modes on their mobile, you will all instantly see that change on your individual Apps and know the Doorbell is potentially recording. :slight_smile:

I was happy to help. It was my pleasure and your kind words put a smile on my face!

Take care and Cheers from across the ‘pond’,

Boone

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@Boone,
Great information as I, too, am a new user. I have more of a housemate privacy issue with the interior camera. Is there a way to disable that when someone is home, other than unplugging it?

Hi @Arls65. You can use the Modes feature to control how your Cameras behave based on which mode they’re in. For example, you can set it to Home Mode so that your Indoor Camera is not recording motion. You can read more about the Modes feature in our Help Center Article here. I hope that helps! :slight_smile:

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