Alarm Feature Request

  1. Announcements of what door/window is opened when in disarmed mode. I have it set to Chile, but that doesn’t tell me anything other than something was opened. My previous alarm would announce “front door” “back door”. We have 4 exterior doors on our house, so knowing what is being opened is really a feature we’ve hoped would be out by now.

  2. Chimes/Announcements from the keypad. Yes, the keypad has a siren and it is a decent amount of noise. But why doesn’t it chime when a door/window is open?

  3. Link Ring Chime to alarm. Another feature I was hoping would be out by now.

  4. HomeKit integration. I know, ring doesn’t want to loose users on its apps and they won’t. Nothing compares to the ring app when it comes to features and settings. But my house is ran on HomeKit. Well, all of it except my many ring devices. It would be so much easier to say “Siri, arm ring in home mode” “hey Siri, show me the front door” I know they were bought but amazon and want to push it all to echo devices, but not everyone owns an echo device. I own one and it’s in my kitchen. So I can’t ask Siri to arm the system when I’m in bed. I have to get up, get my phone, unlock it, launch the app, and then arm it. It’s a simple thing that really I thought would be available by now.

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I just converted our alarm system from Spectrum and am frustrated with the lack of a specific feature on the Ring system.

Why is there no “delay” for arming or disarming the system in the HOME mode?

I called the company and a representative informed me that the “delay” function in settings on the app does not work. This is problematic for me for a number of reasons.

Here are the scenarios under which it is problematic:

  1. I have a dog in the house who doesn’t always leave with me when I leave the home (i.e. going to work). If I were to use the “Away” mode, the dog will probably trip the motion detectors in the home. Therefore, if I want to arm the system, I would need to use the “Home” mode. This causes the following issues:

A) I can’t arm the system with “Home” from the keypad and subsequently exit the house without the Alarm going off. I could use the app on my phone, but this does not hold true for my children who do not have smartphones and want to leave the house with the dog in it.

B) If someone returns home (without a smartphone or if we do not know the system is alarmed), we cannot come home and disarm the system without going off.

To me I do not understand why the same USABLE “delay” functionality isn’t an option in the “Home” mode.

Thanks.

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Delay on both modes is definitely configurable. In the app main menu, go to “settings,” then “modes,” and select “home.”

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Thank you and appreciate the response. However, I did configure the mode to have a delay within the app. Unfortunately, it doesn’t affect the way in which the alarm system behaves.

Currently I have the home mode set to delay for both entry and exit for 60+ seconds and it immediately sounds off if a door is opened.

In other words it does not work as I would expect.

The fact that the delay doesn’t work in Home mode was confirmed in a conversation with the staff at Ring (which has been my experience)

Either your system is malfunctioning, or your door sensor is set to instant instead of entry. I assure you that the delay works the same way in home or away mode. Others here can attest to that. I suggest you double check the configuration of the door sensor.

I sincerely appreciate your help on this. I had spoken to a couple representatives at Ring who attempted to give me “workarounds” to the issue, and stated it was a known problem. Instead, with your suggestion, I can now see the original configuration of the one sensor was set to “secondary” which is not what it should have been set to.

Thank you for your help.

@davefrombostons wrote:
Since that day I’ve thought about how much ring needs to add a medical panic option. Atleast on the app. You never know when a medical issue will arise. I really think it should be added for people who really need it.

Hi Dave, I’m glad to hear that you’re ok, and I think that’s a great idea! In the meantime, until that feature is added, if a medical need arrises, you could hit the emergency call for the fire department. Not everyone knows this, but most fire fighters are also trained EMTs, and also do rotations riding in an ambulance as well. They may show up in the red fire engine instead of an ambulance after the call, but they will be able to provide most of the same medical services an ambulance can provide, as they have much of the same equipment on a fire truck. The fire fighters will no doubt call for an ambulance to come to your house because it’ll be even more well equiped, but the fire fighters would be able to provide life saving medical care in the event of a medical emergancy until an ambulance arrived to rush you to the hospital.

I do think the medical or ambulance emergency call button would be a great idea though, as many people don’t know that fire fighters are also EMTs.

Glad to hear that you are feeling better!

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Yes! I would love a “protected by ring alarm” sign. I have the audio/video but that still didn’t deter the people who broke into our house a few months back. Want one that tells everyone our house is armed with a intelligent and high quality security system.

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@davefrombostons wrote:
Yes! I would love a “protected by ring alarm” sign. I have the audio/video but that still didn’t deter the people who broke into our house a few months back. Want one that tells everyone our house is armed with a intelligent and high quality security system.

I wouldn’t put the stickers that come with an alarm system up. All it does is tell a everyone what exact security system you have. If anything I’d stick with some sort of generic non-brand specific sticker. Brand specific stickers/signs will likely deter a “smash and grab” kind of burglar. I did see though where more sophisticated criminals can see that “Brand ABC Security” sign in your yard or window, look on the FCC website to see which frequency that brand operates on, and they can use cheap electronics that work on the same frequency and use it to jam/block the signal of the devices from talking to the base station. If you use a generic non-brand specific sticker/sign, then the bad guys are left guessing.

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I’m just learning how poorly the integration is between the Ring cameras and thier own security system. For example, I would like to ONLY see motion alerts on the cams when the alarm is armed. The support person I just spoke to said they are two “totally separate systems”. He said tyhe only way they are linked is that the cameras can start to record when the alarm is triggered.

Constant motion notifications are annoying, especially when I’m home or I know people are there. We do not run on a set schedule, so that feature does us no good whatsoever. I cannot recommend anyone use Ring as a system until this is fixed.

You may find thenew ‘Modes’ function helpful for this. Using the Modes you can set some or all of the cameras to not alert during specific modes. For example, you can set the Home Mode to not have interior cameras alert (or even have Live View available if you want), but still have the outside cameras record. Basically, you can determine what cameras have alerts and live view based whether you choose DISARMED, HOME or AWAY. This has help us out a lot for unneeded alerts and recording of some cameras when we are home. You can find more info here and here. This may not hit everything you need, but I suspect it will take care of at least some of it. Hope this helps out!

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@TheCarsForever wrote:

You may find thenew ‘Modes’ function helpful for this. Using the Modes you can set some or all of the cameras to not alert during specific modes. For example, you can set the Home Mode to not have interior cameras alert (or even have Live View available if you want), but still have the outside cameras record. Basically, you can determine what cameras have alerts and live view based whether you choose DISARMED, HOME or AWAY. This has help us out a lot for unneeded alerts and recording of some cameras when we are home. You can find more info here and here. This may not hit everything you need, but I suspect it will take care of at least some of it. Hope this helps out!

Thank you for the reply. This is exactly what I’m looking for, unfortunately, the “sensors” that we can include or exclude do not include our outside cam motion sensors. It shows our indoor motion and door sensors only…

I think this is the feature you are looking for, and it’s due out this month.

https://community.ring.com/t5/News-and-Announcements/Introducing-Modes/m-p/2484/highlight/true#M83

If there is a contact sensor open, let keypad announce which sensor is open when arming. It currently just announces the option to bypass the sensor(s). I have 16 sensors, it is easier to tell me which sensor is open and I can close the door/window. Yes, I can open up the Ring app to see which sensor is open, but this defeats the purpose of the keypad. If I use the app to arm/disarm, the keypad is useless. In traditional alarm system, its keypad first shows sensors are not all closed and you can find out which sensor is open. Alexa does not have the ability to check the status all sensors and then report which sensor is open. It only reports one sensor at a time.

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I have a motion sensor in my bedroom because the room has an accessible window and Ring doesn’t offer window breaking sensors. At night when my room is pitch black and I shift in bed, the motion sensor flashes very brightly and it’s extremely annoying.

I would like an option in the settings of the app to turn off this flash.

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Is there a roadmap to having automated schedules for arm and disarm?

I have Xfinity Home right now and the only feature they have that is remotely useful is this one - set every night at 12am, disarm every day at 630am. This seems like a pretty easy ask. Is it on the roadmap? The current Ring app does not allow this.

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I see all the device linking features but one important one seem to be missing. If my Ring Alarm goes off I would like it to link to my Flood light Siren an make it go off too. I don’t see that option.

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I am new to the system so these may be features but here is a list of what I would like to see with the system.

  • Single PDF with documentation of EVERY alarm feature. I have found the website material and the simple owners manual to be too “dumbed” down to be helpful and have to resort to spending an extensive amount of time searching the site to see if a feature exists.

  • Silent exit feature or temporary sensor bypass. If you step outside during the middle of the night you have to disarm, and rearm the system. This process is very verbal if you have the base station and keypad volumes loud enough to hear the entry/exit delay on a normal “leaving-for-work” exit. Some systems have buttons on the sensor that allows for temporary sensor bypass if you want to use a door or window without setting the alarm off.

  • Monitor mode or custom modes in App- this would allow you to have more options on which sensors are monitored, chirped, etc for different scenario’s of system being active. There should also be an option to disable professional monitoring in said custom mode.

  • Scheduling for arming modes or devices on the network. i.e. turning on lights, etc.

  • Custom device handlers for the z-wave, zigbee networks

I’m sure I’ll have more as I have only been using the system for 2 days now.

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So I have a question / feature wish. My old security company was set up to were when your alarm was triggered and the central monitoring station was notified, they could access your cameras to get a visual as to what was happening. So if say an intruder forced you to disarm the alarm, the central monitoring company could see this and report it to authorities. Does ring offer this or do they have plans to make it an available feature? I know a lot of people won’t like it cause fear of being watched. But I wouldn’t mind having it again. Also the scenario of a fire. They could see where/what was on fire and report it, as well as if there are people or pets trapped. I am away from home 12-16 hours a day and my biggest fear is a fire with my pets inside. It would be nice for them to see them and let the authorities know.