Front door requires bypass if open

I’m glad others understand this issue and am suprised it has not yet been fixed. Due to this limitation I frequently forget to arm my alarm, which renders it pretty useless. Thankfully I bought it from Costco so a return shouldn’t be an issue if it doesn’t get fixed. I even went to the trouble of installing an NFC tag near my front door so I can swipe my phone and start the alarm arming. Of course if the door is opened it doesn’t work.

@ring please can you update on when this issue will be fixed?

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We just installed the Ring alarm in our home and thought something was wrong with it when we couldn’t exit via the ‘main door’ without closing it first.

Ring, please add the feature that the ‘main door’ can be open while the alarm is being set.

Every other alarm system I’ve previously had has this basic function.

I even thought about taking the sensor off the front door and if someone broken in, the motion sensor would activate the alarm - but that seemed a bad idea as a solution to having a basic function missing.

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Couldn’t agree more. Installed this system last night and I just found this thread trying to find out if there was a way to prevent a sensor from being bypassed. It seems like such an obvious requirement. I have people coming in to feed my cat when I’m away etc and they are so used to opening the door before arming it I’m pretty sure my front door sensor will be ineffective whenever I go away on holiday.

Please fix this Ring!!!

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I bought my Ring Alarm a few days ago to replace my 20 year old wired alarm which has this feature so it’s disappointing that basic functionality like this is missing.

It’s been 8 months since this thread was started, can we have an update on this issue please?

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My old DSC alarm behaved the same way. It was the first alarm system I had so thought that all of the worked that way.

Now, if you are arm the system while the door is open, you’ll be prompted to bypass it or it won’t arm.

If you bypass it, why would the alarm ‘rearm’ it? That’s the purpose of bypass - to ignore it because you wanted to.

Maybe another setting - if closed after bypass, arm, or prompt to arm?

In my case, we close the door, tell Alexa “I’m leaving” and then head out.

I can’t believe I first posted about this ‎in Jan 2020 and nothing has been done to fix it (ok a lot has happened in between but no excuse now). I’m in the UK and rival smart alarm systems are starting to appear. If Ring don’t get their act together they are going to lose customers and one of them will be me. This system is better than nothing and just ahead of a dumb alarm but they are the only good things I can say about it. Any semi-decent competition is going to crush it.

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This is crazy I thought my system wasn’t working and it was going to be a simple fix on the settings. This basically means the only way the system is useful is using the app. The keypad is useless I might also return to Costco if I don’t see any update to fix this as it’s basically useless as an alarm system.

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@Marley_Ring wrote:

Thank you for sharing your experience with us @McLovin! We appreciate this feedback and will share it with the team. In the meantime, I recommend simply setting a longer exit delay. This way you will have time to arm and comfortably make your way out of your home along side your family.

Arming from the Ring app is another great way to improve the arming in away mode experience. I hope this helps! :slight_smile:

Dear @ Marley_Ring - Community Manager.

Your solution to this issue not really the optimal scenario as you will see from the long list of people complaining about this “feature”. To reiterate multiple messages on this matter - can a fix please be put in so that the front door can be open when arming to leave the premises? I would imagine it would form part of a software / firmware upgrade please let us know when there is an ETA for it. Also, happy to user test it if needed ?

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I added this to the feature request board. Please vote for it if you would find it useful.

https://community.ring.com/t5/Feature-Request-Board/Allow-arming-countdown-to-start-with-defined-entry-exit-open/idi-p/60138

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I was having the same issue and didn’t see the specific response in this thread so I thought I’d comment. The exit delay only starts of the door is closed when it’s armed. It can then be opened and closed during the delay period. If it’s open when armed it will require a bypass which stays in effect until the next action. Hopefully this helps anyone having the same problem.

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Come on ring this is a basic feature it should not efen need a vote up. Think about it family in hall waiting to go out puting dog in car oh hang on can all ten of you wait in the hall while I close the front so i can arm the alarm. The keypad is useless iinfact less than useless dangerous as it can lead you to unknowingly leaving the house without the sensor set.

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It appears what Garold explained above is what you are trying to achieve. If you arm while the door is closed then open the door, the exit delay starts, and then the door is once again armed once closed and the exit delay times out. All this is done without having to bypass any zones.

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Another vote for this feature.

I’m considering putting an Alexa button in my porch so I can just bash it to trigger the arm routine on my way out rather than faffing with loading the app.

But the ability to arm while the main door is open would be much less crappy!

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Hmmm…to the very first post in this thread, you may know that the bypass function does NOT disable the sensor…once the exit delay has elapsed. If you open the same door and walk in without motion activating any other contacts or PIR’s, you will hear the alarm after the entry delay expires

I tested this

Thus, apart from pressing the ‘tick’ button to bypass the exit/main door, doing so actually doesn’t prevent the alarm from working as intended.

However, if you do ‘bypass’ the main door contact, you won’t hear the keypad when you enter…which is actually a cool ‘feature’ IMO

Cheers Andy

This doesn’t appear to be how mine works. I just installed the 2nd gen and it in fact turns it off. Your explanation also goes against Ring’s own language in their support page for bypassing a sensor. https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001173583-Bypassing-Devices

To everyone else, yes, after just seeing this, this seems so insignificant, but is actually quite a hassle. I’ve owned alarms form ADT, Simplisafe, and Brinks (just the ones I can remember), and all had the feature to leave the front door open. I feel like whoever is speaking that this is just fine this way has never had kids.

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I see this is still an ongoing issue. I have personally found. That the alarm is not armed and I have worked it out that when other house members leave they punch in their number and ignore the bypass message. This meant we were coming back and finding the alarm had not been set all day :confused:

As my family don’t seem to be bright enough to understand the door needs to be closed or they need to confirm bypassing is ok I decided to just add a motion detector pointing to the front door and remove the contact sensor completely.

Poor solution but it does at least mean the alarm is set without additional input or attention needed

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@Patten. That’s probably the only fix there will ever be for this. 5 months on from my last post and over a year since I first posted it, it’s still an issue. Well done @Ring.

To those who still don’t understand the issue, I want to open my front door and while it’s open start the arming process. I will then make sure the door is closed before the countdown ends. I cannot do this as the system asks to bypass the door sensor (my defined exit/entry/main or whatever door) and will not proceed to arming countdown. If I bypass the sensor it stays bypassed after arming.

And no, closing the door first is not a solution as this may mean my young children are outside, nor is doing while my kids are inside as one may go outside while the puts their shoes on etc.

I have 2 15-20 year old dumb alarms that can manage the above without any issue.

EDIT: I just found out I can now use my floodlight siren if the alarm triggers. Ring snuck that one in. At least it give me hope this issue may be fixed one day. The problem is some don’t seem to understand it’s an issue.

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I’ve recently purchased a Ring alarm kit and could not agree more with McLovin. Its the front door and right next to the keypad and is set to the exit main door. I just want to be informed its open (according to the contact sensor) and then as I am right next to it I want to ignore the warning and DONT want to bypass it. Just leave and shut the door behind me. OKAY if it says its open and I can see it is not then I go and see what is wrong with the sensor etc and optionally bypass it to set the rest of the system (a rare event). Opening the main front door for other people and arming from the keypad next to it with the door open is a common event. Please do a software update to allow this scenario and simple change the prompt to “bypass or close the door” and as long as you close within the exit delay then set the alarm with all sensors included.

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@Marley_Ring @Ring
Plus one here. The way ring works when I keep the door open and arm it is very counterintuitive. I just switched from simplisafe and I found this behavior odd! We want to be able to arm the system when my front door is open and expect the system to arm and include the front door in monitoring when it is closed. For scenarios where I have to keep the back door open for a dog, I just expect the sensor to be bypassed as long as the door is open and all other sensors armed. When the door closes, it should get included in monitoring and be armed. There really isn’t a genuine use case where you want the house armed and one sensor unarmed for ever and allow it to open and close multiple times.

Another plus one here. The main door should be exempt from the bypass warning/function, obviously. If I’m standing at that main door and about to exit, and will of course close the door behind me after I leave, it makes no sense to treat that sensor the exact same as some random window sensor on another floor, at the other end of the house.

The purpose of bypass warning is to let you know you forgot something open, and ask you if you’d like to arm anyway without that particular sensor being monitored. How do we need to be warned that we forgot the door open, when we’re actually standing at it and about to leave?

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