Ring Alarm - System Bugs

Hi

Purchased our Ring alarm at the start of March. On the whole it works well but it does seem to have bugs and I’d expect better if I’m honest following a great experience with other Ring products. I’ve got two issues, has anyone ever experienced the below?

  1. Intermittently when arming the alarm into Home mode from the keypad it will say ‘Home and Armed’ then start a countdown which isn’t standard behaviour. The countdown is the same countdown which sounds if setting to away mode.

  2. Intermittently when coming down stairs in the morning I am unable to disarm the keypad from Home mode. For example, this morning the keypad would accept the code but pressing on the disarmed button made no difference and the alarm continued its count down. In the end I had to disarm the alarm from my phone. I’ve also had similar experience when trying to arm the system into Home mode too.

As I say, on the whole the alarm is great but simple bugs really seem to let it down.

For info, my keypad is 1.5m - 2m away from the base station. The base station is approx 0.5m from my router. The firmware is also up to date.

Jonny

1 Like

I’ve had the similar circumstance when the keypad simply would not disarm the tripped alarm. I tried both my code and my wife’s. Had to resort to the app. Fairly big bug in this situation!

Knock on wood but I’ve had zero issues/bugs.

Do you have 1st or 2nd generation?

I’m trying to think if there are contact/motion sensor settings that may be the cause of this behavior. Doesn’t sound like a bug.

Can you clarify #2. You mention in the morning you use your pin and press disarm but doesn’t work and continues count down. What count down? If it’s been armed over night, not sure what count dowh would be happening.

My alarm is gen 1, just checked up and don’t think gen 2 is available in the UK yet.

Re #1: when setting home mode if the alarm says ‘home and armed’ then starts the count down, entering the code and selecting disarm and then setting home mode again usually works correct with no count down so definitely a bug.

Re #2: When we have home mode active we have it configured to alarm the sensors and door contacts downstairs only. When we come down the stairs the motion sensor is activated and starts a count down. Usually we input our code and select disarm and that’s it deactivated. Today it wouldn’t disarm despite the code and disarm button being selected as it usually does. Only way I could disarm was using the app. When we select away mode this arms all sensors all over the house inclusive of upstairs. I’ve triple checked and only downstairs sensors are set to arm on home mode and the sensor with sight of the keypad is set as an entry/exit sensor.

@Jonny wrote:
Hi

Purchased our Ring alarm at the start of March. On the whole it works well but it does seem to have bugs . . . For info, my keypad is 1.5m - 2m away from the base station. The base station is approx 0.5m from my router. The firmware is also up to date. Jonny

@Jonny ,

This might sound like a silly question from me, and I don’t mean to offend. But I’ll ask it because your situation sounds familiar to another post I read. Is your Keypad attached with a wired cord to your Base Station?

If your Keypad IS connected to the Base Station using the jack-ports, it should NOT be. The KeyPad ‘talks’ to the Base Station only using Z-Wave (not by a wired cord). The Keypad should only be plugged into the AC electrical outlet. In the other post I read, an individual did utilize the empty jack-ports to connect his Keypad to the Base Station. And it somehow did work fine . . . until much later when it started acting weird, with buttons not working, and other malfunctions.

https://community.ring.com/t5/Ring-Alarm/Ring-Keypad-Problems/m-p/45768

Your Alarm system is not acting normally as it should. I hope my question didn’t offend you in any way. But since your keypad is very close to your base unit, and the malfunctions you described sounded familiar, I figured it couldn’t hurt to at least ask.

Additionally, Ring Support Troubleshooting guides (for Alarm system) might be helpful:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/categories/360003210751

And if your issues continue, you should call Ring Support by telephone:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch

Of course, you might just have a “broken” unit. But I hope you are able to solve it. :slight_smile:

@ringone ,
@PalmSpringsBill
, FYI

Hi @Boone

Thanks for your detailed reply, no offence taken whatsoever, I just appreciate you taking the time to try and help me :slight_smile:

I can confirm the keypad is not connected to mains power or the base unit by any form of cable, it’s running off its internal battery and using Z Wave for connectivity.

Thanks for the troubleshooting guides link, I’ll run through them today and report back on if any improve the situation.

I’m an IT engineer by trade and the intermittency of the issues makes me believe this is more bug related as when the kit works as intended it’s great but it certainly won’t hurt to try the troubleshooting guides!

Kind Regards

Jonny

@Jonny

Ah . . . well I figured it was ‘worth a shot’ to ask.

But did you say your keypad is running off its internal battery? Maybe I misunderstanding you . . . but does that mean your Keypad is ONLY running off the battery? Or do you indeed have it plugged into an AC outlet too, so the internal battery is constantly being recharged?

I’m just asking because I’m not sure what you meant by, “keypad is not connected to mains power.”

@boone

Yeah that’s correct, the keypad is only running using its internal battery and is not connected into the AC outlet :slight_smile:

Battery life has been very impressive so far. They keypad appears to have used only 50% of its battery capacity in 4 months which is great.

@Jonny wrote:
Yeah that’s correct, the keypad is only running using its internal battery and is not connected into the AC outlet. Battery life has been very impressive so far. They keypad appears to have used only 50% of its battery capacity in 4 months which is great.

Ah, OK. That satisfied my curiosity (you are indeed running your Keypad on the battery only). LOL, you are the first person I’ve encountered that doesn’t keep it plugged in all the time. Now, it should not make any difference, because RIng states:

  • _ " POWER: It connects to power using the included USB power supply and cable, but you can use it plugged in or unplugged. It takes a few hours to charge the internal rechargeable battery, and it should last for about 7 months, depending on usage. " _

_“About 7 months of battery life” . . . _ interesting . . . so that does align nicely with your current 50% power reading.

Now that I know more, I agree with you that your issues are probably a Firmware bug, causing these strange glitches. I don’t know if you have had Firmware updates while on battery power. If you did, it should have downloaded fine and 'glitch free. But I also wonder about when Ring stated:

  • " Full Power: Before you begin any updates, make sure that each Keypad has plenty of power. Your keypad will also need to be unplugged and then plugged back in before starting. "

With you running only on battery power, that should not have had any effect during Firmware updates, that you may have received. It’s just those words, “Full Power before you begin any updates” that keeps nagging at me.

Anyhow, I do think that you will most likely need a hard factory reset to clear out any corrupted firmware, which will also download fresh “glitch-free” firmware (could be 20 minutes to download). Unfortunately, this will remove device settings (chirps, volume adjustments, etc.) and reset the device back to the original default settings. But it shouldn’t take long to change settings back as you prefer.

For Hard Factory Resets, it’s best that you Remove your Keypad from your phone app, prior to any Hard Reset (Main Menu > Devices > Alarm Base Station > Keypad > Setting (Upper-right Gear Icon) > Remove (at the bottom of screen).

Then follow the directions for hard Factory Reset are in that Troubleshooting link:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/categories/360003210751

You being an IT engineer, I’ve probably told you way more than you actually need, but I just wanted to be clear and helpful.

vr,

Boone

This is a known issue, I made posts about this a year or 2 ago. There is something wrong with the keypads or the base causing them not to communicate when attempting to disarm during tripped alarm (aka the entry delay when you walk in) and just imagine when your phone loads too slowly leaving you frantic while your siren is blaring.

Support tried sending me new keypads to fix the issue but it the issue is still there, it comes and goes. For a while it was thought that the issue was due to the keypad being plugged into power 24/7 which ring support will tell you causes issues (bewildering when you consider the keypad is designed to be wired with the groove in the back)

Best bet is to make a habit of “reconfiguring” the keypads in their advanced settings on a regular basis. Quarterly has kept things running well for me

@Jonny wrote:
Hi @Boone. Thanks for your detailed reply . . . I just appreciate you taking the time to try and help me :slight_smile: Thanks for the troubleshooting guides link, I’ll run through them today and report back on if any improve the situation. Kind Regards, Jonny

I’m just curious. Did you finally solve your Keypad issue?