Serious Safety Flaw - please correct!

I’m no security expert, but it makes sense for the motion sensors to disregard the 3 minute interval once the exit delay has expired. The system should assume that everyone has already left and any motion from that point forward should trigger the sensor regardless of the timeout period.

For example, let’s say that you arm the system and activate the 60 second exit delay. 30 seconds later, trigger a motion sensor on the way out the door. The motion sensor should rearm in another 30 seconds once the exit delay ends instead of 2.5 minutes to reach the end of the 3 minute “timeout” period.

2.5 minutes may not be a lot of time, but as OP said… its 2.5 minutes of being vulnerable that seems to be an easy fix.

I haven’t tested any of this myself, so I’ll be interested to know how it turns out.

I’ve not had a chance to do more testing - hope to do so in the next day or so. I will put my alarm in ‘self’ monitoring mode (to play it safe). I’ll test how the motion sensors react to the 'home ’ and ‘away’ modes and report back.

It would be interesting if others can test as well to see if it is a global issue.

Thanks, @SoriceConsulting. From my findings, the three minute wait time for motion detection seems to be an industry standard for alarm systems. But I’d like to point out that our Contact Sensors do have a customizable Entry Delay. If someone were to enter the home when armed in either Home or Away Mode, they would first trigger the Contact Sensor on the door or window before triggering the Motion Detector. At that point, the Alarm will sound as soon as the Entry Delay is over. You can set the Entry Delay to 0 seconds, in order to sound the Alarm immediately (keeping in mind that you may be more likely to accidentally trigger false alarms).

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Thanks Jennifer! Appreciate your keeping on top of this subject. My concern is from experience with our prior system (which we happily replaced with Ring!).

With that one, once we armed the system, the alarm would go off immediately if we stepped in front of a motion sensor (been there, done that by mistake).

That does not seem to be happening with Ring.

I will try and so some detailed testing tomorrow and post back my results for the community.

@SoriceConsulting wrote:

Jennifer,

Thanks for the explanation. However, it does not match my experience. I just tested again:

  1. Moved in front of 3 Motion Sensors (kitchen, front entry, dining room).

  2. Moved to the top step of our basement stairs (where I am out of sight of all 3 sensors and all other sensors as well), and set the alarm to Home.

  3. Set a stopwatch and waited 90 seconds.

  4. Moved back into the field of view of the sensors.

Alarm did not go off.

I had to wait at least 2-3 minutes before the sensors were active and caught the motion.

PS - We have not pets, etc. and I was the only one in the house for the test.

I think that in ‘Home’ mode, the sensors should activate immediately - since I’m Home and know which ones not to activate by accident.

When you set the alarm to ‘Away’ it would make sense for the motion sensors to be active after the exit delay has expired. I’ll test that as well later today and post back.

Im pretty sure the difference between Home and Away modes are that when you arm the alarm in Home mode it bypasses the motion sensors so you dont trip them since you are in the house and only the contact sensors are active. When you arm in Away mode (no one should be in the house) then all sensors are active.

This is how my Brinks home security worked and makes sense to me.

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Thanks johhnyd91.

I’m aware of the mode differences. You can selectively keep motions sensor armed when you are home - which is what we do. We have no pets/kids, so we keep some motion sensors armed in Home mode when we go to bed (i.e., you can walk around the second floor but not downstairs, as those motion sensors are active at night in Home mode).

Everyone,

I’ve done some testing and here are the results.

Home Mode:

> Move arond in front of Sensors which are set to be active in Home mode

> Set Ring to Home mode (which means some motion sensors are armed - see earlier posts)

> Go to a neutral space where no motion sensors can detect me

> Wait 2 minutes (timed via stopwatch)

> Walk in front of Sensors which should trigger an alarm (ie, active in Home mode)

Nothing. I kept moving in front of the Sensors that *should* be active. They did not trigger an alarm until the 4 minute mark (stopwatch timed).

What’s worse is that the same exact thing happenend in ‘Away’ mode, even though the exit delay is set to 30 seconds!

What?

If I tell Ring that I want all Sensors active after a 30 second exit grace period in ‘Away’ mode, why would the motion sensors need FOUR MINUTES to trigger an alarm??

This is a serious flaw. So much so that (even though we love other aspects of the system) I’d probably return it. However, I’ve taken a lot of time to deploy it, so I’m hoping that there will be firmware updates to address these shortcomings.

Again, this is a SERIOUS flaw. I can envision lawsuits over this - Ring gives you a green check mark saying ‘all sensors armed’, then the motion sensors can be INACTIVE for up to 4 minutes - way more than enough time for really bad things to happen.

Please Jennifer_Ring, get in touch with your Tech people and see what they say about firware updates to address this. Maybe let users choose when to have sensors activate in ‘Home’ and ‘Away’? I don’t care if it affects battey life - safety first.

Also, others reading this thread - please try and do your own testing to confirm my findings.

Thanks to all in the Community! Not complaining - just trying to make Ring the best home security system on the market…

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Have you tried changing the motion sensor sensistivity in the app?

Of the 3 in my test, 2 were set at maximum, the other was at the default (middle setting). I was literally walking around them, waving my arms, etc. I think it is just that they have a 3-4 minute delay before detecting motion after they last sense it (which doesn’t make sense - no pun intended :^)

I think when you arm the system (either Home or Away), the sensors should arm after the exit delay period you set. Ours is 30 seconds.

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Have you tried putting the motion sensors into test mode and seeing what responses come back while testing? Maybe just to rule out bad sensors.

I tested them all when setting up and before the alarm tests. Even so, in my tests I was trying to trigger 3 different sensors. They all triggered (ie, are working), but only after the 3-4 minute delay.

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Kind of disappointed that no one from Ring has commented on this. I think it is a serious issue. Let’s hope they post something soon. I’ll also be calling support as well to see where things stand.

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Thank you for your feedback @SoriceConsulting . As mentioned, we recommend using both Contact Sensors and Motion Detectors to create a ring of security around your home. By using Contact Sensors at every entry point around your home, any intruder would be detected and set off the Alarm after your customizable Entry Delay. We appreciate your feedback and have sent it to the team, but it appears that the Alarm is indeed working as designed.

Thanks Jennifer. I understand it is working as designed. I’m trying to point out what I feel is a serious security/safety flaw! I spoke to a representative on the phone a few days ago and he said you’ve gotten LOTS of calls about this issue.

No to repeat prior posts, but when the alarm is set (especially in Away Mode), I’m telling Ring that I am *leaving* the house in 30 seconds (our set exit delay). Why on earth would the system then wait 3-4 minutes to arm Motion Sensors?

Also, when set to Home Mode, I am, again, telling Ring that I will not be walking near the Motion Sensors I set to be armed when home. Again - why on earth would the system then wait 3-4 minutes to arm Motion Sensors?

Serious flaw. The green check mark saying all sensors are armed is an outright falsehood.

If someone broke in during that 3-4 minute ‘unarmed’ time period (through an area that is only protected by motion sensors) they could steal a bunch of stuff, hurt someone, etc. - which could be a serious liability issue for Ring.

At the vey least, please update the firmware so that I can choose to arm all motion sensors when the exit delay expires. Seems like such a simple fix.

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While I don’t personally consider the three minut delay on the motion sensors to be a serious security breech, it would still be good to be able to set a zero delay. That way you could use the system as a panic button. I arm and disarm my system with Alexa commands . If I heard strange noises/voices and realized the system was disarmed, I would like to be able to voice control the system on with an immediate response to motion.

While I don’t personally consider the three minut delay on the motion sensors to be a serious security breech, it would still be good to be able to set a zero delay. That way you could use the system as a panic button. I arm and disarm my system with Alexa commands . If I heard strange noises/voices and realized the system was disarmed, I would like to be able to voice control the system on with an immediate response to motion.

I found this thread while searching for a solution to this issue of delay.

It is clear to me that Ring designed it this way and doesn’t see a problem with it. I’m just here to post that this is a problem and that this isn’t how a lot of people want their motion sensors to behave.

After a Ring motion sensor detects motion, it essentially goes dead for four minutes, so any motion is completely ignored for four minutes after an initial motion detection. I don’t see how Ring thinks this is a good design. But they do think this, and at the very least they should give people an option to change this.

I am using motion sensors to trigger routines with Alexa. These routines need to run every single time a motion is detected, even if the motions occur 30 seconds apart. Paralyzing the routines for four minutes makes the routines useless. Probably makes a lot of motion-based routines useless.

Hopefully Ring will fix this some day.

I agree 100%. Having a motion sensor go ‘dead’ after detecting motion is just plain dumb. The only thing I can think of is they do this to preserve battery life. I also agree that this should be an option that can be changed by the user.

Can anyone at Ring give us a clear explanation of the logic behind making motion sensors go dead for 3-4 minutes after detecting motion? And why can’t you just update the software/firmware to make it a user setting?

Example setting I’d love to see:

After inital motion detection, pause addtional motion detection for:

a) 0 seconds

b) 30 seconds

c) 1 minute

d) 2 minutes

e) 3 minutes

Note: Setting a lower pause time may impact battery life.

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Bump.

Jennifer_Ring?

Riley_Ring?

Any comments?

Jenifer_Ring

Your suggestion that users protect all points of entry with contact sensors is inadequate. I have 14 posible points of entry at my home. Also, contact sensors do not protect windows - it is easy to simply break a window and crawl through. Your motion sensors NEED to change or you will begin to loose business

I am currently researching another supplier for replacement of my existing Ring sensors.

I am over-invested (time and money) in the Ring system and would hate to scrap the entire system.

One of two things WILL happen:

  1. Ring will fix the firmware - soon, or

  2. I and many others will acquire a different system.

Note to others who believe that this is a problem.I will post if I find a satisfactory replacement sensor