Add hardwire support in the Retro Kit for motion sensors

I’ve installed the Retro Kit to my Ring Alarm and have successfully added my hard wired motion sensor (it’s being powered by the old ADT panel). The problem is that the Ring alarm sees this sensor as a door/window resulting in hundreds of entries being generated in the Event History/Alarm tab as we walk around the house. The history gets over populated with opening and closings of the sensor. It would be great if hard wired motion sensor could be supported the same as or close to the Ring motion sensor.

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Also, this would help with Alexa integration, as existing wired motion sensors pulled in from retrofit alarm kit have to be configured as a “window” or “door”. This limits what can be done with routines in Alexa. For example, try to trigger a routine on “when there is no motion for 30 minutes” … Alexa handles this fine if it knows that something is actually a motion sensor, but not so much for doors and windows.

Click on Settings - Modes - Disarmed - Devices in Disarmed Mode is greyed out. If we could toggle off the retrofit sensors (in our case the hardwired motion detectors) then the problem is solved. We can already toggle on/off each sensor in the other modes, so I don’t see why that cannot translate to the disarmed mode as well.

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Since the retro kit gets mounted next to the old panel, and it is obvious the old hard wire system is plugged into an electrical oulet so electric is available, why not make the retro kit plug into an AC outlet then it could power items like a motion detector and maybe even a hardwired smoke detector?

Just wondering why it doesn’t use AC.

Dale

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Adding the power capability to Retrofit Kit implies they would have to release a new version of the retrofit kit … however, adding software support for defining a particular zone as a motion sensor is just a software update. In most cases people can power their motion sensors from their existing alarm panels, so it doesn’t seem to be a critical requirement to be able to power them from the retrofit kit.

Please, Ring, add software support for defining a zone as a motion sensor!

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Sadly, this is a deal breaker for me. We have very high ceilings with wired motion detectors. I don’t want to be changing batteries on those. This software update would do it for me!

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Definitely a simple enough software update for Ring to implement (if they so choose). Or will they force us to buy their wireless motion sensors. I think since we shelled out for the retrofit kit this should be included for the $$$ we paid on the retrofit kit.

RING, PLEASE ADD THIS SIMPLE AND EASY FEATURE.

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To add to this. When I go to arm my system at the keypad, I have to wait for the wired motion sensor to “close” otherwise it wants me to disable the zone to arm. I would like the system to ignore the wired motion sensor just to be able to arm at the panel and then once I leave the house, then the wired motion sensor is triggered if “opened”.

Likewise, if I get the recently announced Ring Always Home Cam, I don’t want me using the camera while the system is armed to think a door opened because the wired sensor is treated like a door right now.

Just hooked up my wired motion sensor. Really thought this would be an easy feature for Ring to do. Please add support for motion sensors

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The Retro Kit can be powered using 2 battery eliminators that come with alligator clips. The batteries are in series so you need 2 eliminators for 1 retro kit.

Also, they make battery eliminators that have fake AA batteries. Pop a dummy in your motion sensor, steel the power wire running your old motions, and in the alarm panel, wire the stollen wire to a 1.5v battery eliminator.

They work great and have USB power options.

You can also use buck converters that will step your old alarm panel 12v power to whatever your devices battery voltage is (AA = 1.5 or 1.6v).

There you go, no more batteries… anyone else remember “Battery Savers” from radio shack back in the day? Same principle is applied here!

IMPORTANT: Make sure any power supplies and/or buck converters output DC and NOT VAC power. Some I have seen supply VAC which would fry your electronics in the devices.