The reason why this feature is needed for Ring doorbells is abundatly clear in this video posted by community member Complexity in another thread. If you want to know why so many people are complaining about video quality with IR on and why they want an option to be able to turn it off, watch this video:
https://ring.com/share/ffbb0664-2cb3-4ea4-a69f-00f8af98be21
The first thing you will notice in the video is what Ring’s doorbell “color video” quality looks like with IR on at night. There is actually very little color to it and the picture quality is not all that good. However, if you take a flashlight and shine it at the Ring Doorbell to trick it in to turning off the IR, the picture quality can improve dramatically both in terms of actually seeing color but also improved detail.
For the Ring engineers, watch the video and tell me which one you woud rather have, IR forced to be on at night time like is currently the situation as shown in the first part of the video or would it be better to have the option to be able to turn the IR off through the app instead tricking the IR off with a flashlight. If you watch the video it should be clear why so many people want this feature.