App Omissions

There have been some significant app revisions in the last week, but there are still serious problems.

I tried to clear old videos a couple of days ago. I have four different devices installed and recording, and on one of those I was unable to delete recordings.

On our ā€œFlood Light Cameraā€ I tried multiple times on two different days before I was able to delete ā€œall recordingsā€ Not sure if this is related to this specific camera or not. One of the clues that ring had been led astray is that the ā€œspinnerā€ started and never stopped on all attempts to delete.

As an example, the ā€œcamera historyā€ has a completely different interface from that of the individual camera recordings. Tap the ā€œ3dotā€ menu, sometimes you get a menu, but most of the time you get sent to the recording. <tap/hold> and you get ā€œcheck circlesā€ as opposed to <check boxes> ā€¦but, they can only be selected one by one, ā€¦and as a special treat, scroll down and the check circles (and your previous selections) disappear.

In addition to different interface options for each camera type as well as yet another interface on the ā€œall eventsā€ button, thereā€™s no documentation for users for this (and many other sections of the app)

Sometimes icons appear on the screen, but, in the ring app, unlike other apps, <press/hold> does not tell the user what the icon is notifying. (no ring icons do this other than the ā€œinvite friendsā€ iconā€¦ (that would tend to indicate that the ring sales department is in control of the app)

For example, there is no hint or clue that to delete, one has to swipe left to right to expose the checkboxes and ā€œdelete allā€ If you check _one_ box, the ā€œdelete allā€ changes to ā€œdeselect allā€ ā€¦so, if you have a large number of recordings and want to save several, the _only_ option is to manually check the boxes for every one you want to delete and not check the boxes of the ones you want to save.

It would make far more sense to change ā€œdelete allā€ to ā€œselect allā€ then the user could deselect the ones they want to save and press the trash can icon.

Thereā€™s also no way to reliably (or easily) to go to the event viewer. Press the ā€œ3dotā€ menu to the upper left of the camera image and sometimes you go to a 3 to 5 option menu at the bottom of the screen, select ā€œsettingsā€ then select ā€œevent viewerā€ BUT most of the time when you press the ā€œ3dotā€ menu you go to the cameraā€™s view screen, then you have to press the settings gear at the top right of the screen, etc.

The above selection errors point to the probability that whomever created the touch zone, did it completely wrong.

Thereā€™s zero information on the screen to tell you that the alert that just notified the user of motion is not available to view and my not be available for five or more minutesā€¦ gotta get up, go to the door, walk to the gate and look for yourself.

If you press <Back> on the the vertical view screens or the camera page, you exit the entire app.

Again, from the usersā€™ viewpoint, when you select view, it appears totally random if you will be sent to the vertical view screen or the horizontal full screen.

Then the user has no way of knowing if the user is in ā€œlive viewā€ or a recorded event.

Some full screens have a date time stamp, other viewings such as pressing the right arrow of the events screen show the same screen with no date time stampā€¦ could be that itā€™s a live view, no way for the users to know.

This morning, from the vertical view screen, when ā€œlive viewā€ pressing ā€œfull screenā€ takes you to full screen. From the same vertical view screen, when viewing a recorded event, pressing full screen starts to load the full screen, then the app exits to the camera menu.

All of the above anomolies have been tested multiple times.

All of the above are inconsistant at times.

The ring app is up to date and has been uninstalled and re-installed several times on a Moto G6 with over 11gb free storage

I know this is a ā€œlowly userā€ forum, but I post the above with the hope that someone from ring who can pass it onā€¦ willā€¦ not that I expect that any action will be taken.

Again, from a programmerā€™s viewpoint, it seems obvious that no one responsible for the design or programming of the app actually uses the appā€¦ if they did, I would assume that major errors and problems such as the above would be noticed and addressed.

Beverly Howard

Hey @bevhoward, thank you so much for sharing your feedback and experience! I appreciate you putting in the detail and effort into this post. I will make sure to pass this onto our team that works on the development of the app so that they can take this into consideration for future. I know that depending on the deviceā€™s software you are running it could be a different experience each time.

You also mentioned that you are using a Moto G6, and I was just curious on what version of the Androidā€™s OS are you on? Itā€™s possible that this may need to be updated in order to have the full functionality that you are looking for on the Ring app, so I just wanted to ask to make sure we cover all sections of troubleshooting!

What a pain it is to simply respond to a forum post with the new ā€œrulesā€ coupled with the ill designed second login screen that has such low contrast the fields are not visible plus the requirement to re-enter the password even though it was entered seconds ago.

Android 9, but I support others running other versionsā€¦ but then, all those I support have stopped using the app because of the above problems.

Your designers obviously live and work in worlds where users donā€™t exist.

Beverly Howard

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Guess the ā€œlowly users forumā€ is not up to your high standards.

>> standards <<

Usability would be a basic standard of mine :wink:

I participate in a large number of forums and this one is now the most difficult to use because of the new login/open-email/copy-number/re-enter-password/paste-number requirement

ā€¦only to be timed out and the above requirements are needed again to reply to responses such as this oneā€¦ but, you are worth the effort.

Yes, Iā€™m frustratedā€¦ but thatā€™s because it is so easy to address issues like these, and, in my experience, most frustrated users simply go away. Is that the goal?

Beverly Howard

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