Smart Dusk/Dawn settings

Issue: My flood light and spot light cam when detecting motion turn their lights on when still light outside. This causes unwanted attention and seems unnesscary.

Proposal: The floodlight’s / spotlight’s camera is used to measure the amount of light or lack thereof (i.e., there is no traditional photocell per se). I see no reason why you couldn’t specify (through the Ring app) what level of light (as measured by the camera) constitutes day and night. i.e. a local calibration?

I’m wondering if Ring couldn’t support a “more intelligent” notion of “dusk” and “dawn”. Of course, dusk occurs after sunset. Dawn occurs before sunrise. Sunset and sunrise times are different every day and vary based on your location. However, sunset and sunrise times would be easily accessible by the Ring cloud service (based on your location). You could define dusk and dawn using the Ring app by defining the delta (in minutes with a default of say, 70 minutes) with respect to sunset and sunrise, respectively.
In simple terms, you could say I want my lights to start coming on at dusk and stop coming on at dawn (i.e., dusk-to-dawn).

However, you could define dusk to be later in the evening (relative to sunset) in order to ensure it’s more dark outside before lights start coming on. Someone else may want their lights to start coming on earlier.

To reemphasize, this would’t be a function of your floodlight’s / spotlight’s camera. And it’s not a simple Light Schedule. It’s based on an accurate, real-time definition of sunrise and sunset. Note: All of your floodlights / spotlights would start / stop coming on at the exact same times, regardless of the direction they’re facing (North, South, East or West), whether they’re mounted in direct sunlight or shade, …

Thoughts?

9 Likes

This would be a great feature! Right now my lights are linked to my stick up cam, but manually entering when these will turn on/off doesn’t work that well when dusk /dawn are constantly changing. Please add a Dusk to Dawn toggle feature where we currently enter our ON between times. Using Geo location it should be plausible to have a system that sees your locations dusk/dawn times.

In the year 2020, where dumb flood lights have this feature, it is a real disappointment that Ring doesn’t.

I agree with Andy77f’s suggestion. Whichever implementation is easiest would save me from having to continually change the on/off times of the camera, either 1) Andy77f’s suggestion, or 2) a sunset/sunrise based on location.

Thank you!

Bump, yes please I would also like this feature to be implemented

My Lutron lighting knows when sunset/sunrise happen based on location using the internet connection. This is more reliable than measuring ambient light. I can turn my lights on “30 minutes after sunset”. Smart.

Ring does so many brilliant things that the spectacular stupidity of not offering a sunrise/sunset offset scheduling option just blows my mind. It is pure molten idiocy.

Yes, this feature seems like a no-brainer. It’s incredibly disappointing that Ring doesn’t support something this useful.

I strongly agree with this. Please implement smart Dusk/Dawn/Sunrise/Sunset settings. I am tired of changing the times on the “When can these lights be activated?” page for 5 of my ring devices every few weeks! This original request was made almost 4 years ago. I’m sure all the Ring/Amazon owners are multi-billionaires by now, just from this product line alone. What’s the problem Ring? Do we have to search for other products to meet our needs?