streaming away from home

My doorbell works perfectly well when I am at home. When I am away I have trouble getting a picture. I am using a Samsung J7? The phone has no problem at home. But when I am out I have trouble connecting to the doorbell. I am assuming it has something to do with the phone. Anyone have any ideas or solutions?

Hey @dharrell, when you are away from home and trying to connect, could you grab a screenshot and then attach it to your reply of what it looks like when you’re attempting to load the Live View? Having this will help us understand more of what is happening when the video is trying to load. I recommend to make sure you have mobile data turned on and that you are in an area with a good signal.

I have attached screenshot.

Looks like you have a bunch of things going on in the notification panel. Are you using any malware, virus, VPN programs? Anything running in the background all the time? Make sure you also close all apps in the background as well. That should help.

Running nothing in background.

Anything in here maybe. See link.
https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005889983-Android-Apps-that-Conflict-with-the-Ring-App

Disabled Lookout. Will try it tomorrow when I go out.

Thank you neighbors for working with each other to find a solution on this! Additionally, @dharrell, in your screenshot it looked like you were still connected to a wifi network. The signal on that network was low with just the dot at the bottom lit up and an exclamation point. Before loading the Live View, make sure to completely disable the wifi, as it seems the wifi you were connected to may have been causing this lag as well. Let us know how it goes!

Thanks, I will try that.

Disabled lookout. Didn’t help. Thanks anyway.

Turned wi-fi off. Still does not work. However sometimes when I go back to the preview screen it is working. Switch back and it doesn’t. This is even at home.

Sending screenshots

Second shot

When picture does not appear sometimes it will appear in history several minutes later or hour later.

Can a slow streaming speed be the cause. After I use so much data the provider slows the speed. What speed is the min. ?

@dharrell Thank you so much for providing those screenshots! I think you may have nailed it though with your assumption. If your speeds are being limited or slowed down for any reason, that can then limit the streaming quality. Most internet service providers will slow down the upload speeds first before the downloads speeds, as most people use download over the upload. For our devices, we best recommend to have 2 Mbps download and upload per device. This will be for the home network, but if your data provider for your phone limits your speeds as well, this could pose a problem too.

I noticed a similar concern when I first installed my Doorbell. When I was away at work, the wifi network I was connected to wouldn’t allow me to view my Doorbell, so I had to swap to data. When on data, it was good for awhile, but after a couple weeks passed, it wouldn’t load or it would say my phone’s connection was weak. This was because I was using up all my data, thus slowing it down. After caving and opting for the unlimited data plan, I never ran into this issue again. So this could very well be what you’re running into as well!

I actually did some research into this and the phone involved. What I was able to find were threads on it at Samsung, ATT, Sprint and T-Mobile involving streaming. Most of them had restrictions on the data plans that caused various app to not work on data but work fine on wifi. So, maybe this is the cause. I wasn’t able to find anything more in my searches. Hopefully this helps.

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Thanks, I think I will upgrade to a 4G and the unlimited data.

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I’d try it for sure. If you like Android phones. I’d highly recommend the Pixel 3A or 3A XL. Reasonably priced now and will be upgraded faster than any other. I own one and it will definitely work with Ring. Let us know how it goes.

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Bought Pixel 3A yesterday. Increased data limit. Everything works fine. Thanks

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