Bug Report: Ring App turns on screen on Android 9, regardless of notification settings

Exactly, this is the issue I’m facing. I my house faces a street so I’m constantly getting alerts and to have my screen turn on for every single.one takes a hit on battery life.

No, as the title says, this is an Android 9 issue too. I have all of my notifications disabled (except for actual doorbell rings) and my screen still wakes constantly. Considering I have no actual Ring popup or running notification, it took me a while to even realize why my phone was still doing this. But when three delivery trucks rumbled past my house over the course of 5 minutes, I figured it out.

Considering how many of these units they’ve sold I’m shocked that Ring continues to allow this to happen. I’m also shocked that we’re still forced to use that godawful night mode, when my outside lights/street lights provide FAR better light at night.

I am yet another user (currently Pixel 4XL) that has been experiencing this issue on my last two Pixel phones. I understand it taking some time to get the issue identified, validated, and addressed. My frustration is with the lack of information around the process. All too often you hear “they are working on it and it will be fixed in a future release”… but when is that exactly? :smiley: It would be nice to know the status of an issue because at least at that point you know it is being officially acknowledged. Maybe there is something out there about new releases/fixes and I just have not stumbled upon it. Knowing a problem was assigned a priority, is being worked on, and the status available would at least help me a bit with the frustration.

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I don’t think this will be fixed for some time if at all. It might be a pixel only issue. We pixel users are a very small group. I am however counting on this to be a Android 10 issue. And as more phones use Android 10
Hopefully the complaints are enough to be heard…
I think Android 10 removed the option for users to set notification priority levels. In Android 8 and 9 I recall seeing options to set individual apps notification low medium and high. Ring app is somehow stuck in high priority.
The only other app to wake screen from sleep is the phone app. But this is ok for this app to wake my screen. Since I’ll be pulling it out of my pocket to look

Ring please fix this issue. Your app wakes screen for all notifications. This is a issue if you keep your phone in ur pocket. As most pant pocket lining is thin enough to register touches to screen so your screen stays awake untill you pull it out only to find all kinds of mayham done from all the touches

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@john wrote:
I don’t think this will be fixed for some time if at all. It might be a pixel only issue. We pixel users are a very small group. I am however counting on this to be a Android 10 issue. And as more phones use Android 10
Hopefully the complaints are enough to be heard…
I think Android 10 removed the option for users to set notification priority levels. In Android 8 and 9 I recall seeing options to set individual apps notification low medium and high. Ring app is somehow stuck in high priority.
The only other app to wake screen from sleep is the phone app. But this is ok for this app to wake my screen. Since I’ll be pulling it out of my pocket to look

Ring please fix this issue. Your app wakes screen for all notifications. This is a issue if you keep your phone in ur pocket. As most pant pocket lining is thin enough to register touches to screen so your screen stays awake untill you pull it out only to find all kinds of mayham done from all the touches

Definitely not a Pixel only issue, I’m having the same issues on two devices. (Oneplus 7 Pro running android 10 and Blackberry running android 9) and they both have the exact same issue. Also the original poster is has in the title of this thread that they’re having the issue with Android 9. This has to be something thats coded wrong in the application itself, if not other apps would have this issue as well. But its getting really annoying to the point where I was actually thinking about getting a Google Doorbell and cameras. I guess we’ll see, doesn’t seem like they care because most users who aren’t that tech saavy wont bother to try and find a forum to complain about it.

That’s why I go out of my in all my posts to explain why having your screen wake from sleep is such a big deal. I’m tired if pulling my phone out of my pocket only to find either Bluetooth turned off or just plain locked out because while in my pocket my thigh has touched my phone too many times as in too many wrong passwords have been entered.

There is a option in Android 10 Settings/Display/Lock screen display/when to show. You’ll find a option to wake screen for new notifications. My wife and I have this off. It does nothing for the ring app. But it might help with non pixel Android 10 users?

Yup. LG V30 here with Android 9. Definitely have the (extremely aggravating) issue. Oh, and I tried the Rapid Ring app and it lets me log in, but gives me an error trying to connect to my doorbell. I give up.

@john wrote:
There is a option in Android 10 Settings/Display/Lock screen display/when to show. You’ll find a option to wake screen for new notifications. My wife and I have this off. It does nothing for the ring app. But it might help with non pixel Android 10 users?

Checked this route on my Oneplus 7 Pro and there’s nothing in here that can help me. Buttttttttt you’re post actually just lit a light bulb for me to the point were I feel dumb for not thinking about it before. I just remembered that you can search for options in android from inside the settings (They have so much nested options that I use it all the time). So I just opened the settings screen and used the search thats at the top and searched for the word “Wake”. And found an option that says “Don’t wake for notifications” and it has custom restrictions. Inside theres two options for when screen is off.

  1. Don’t turn on screen (I just selected this one)

  2. Don’t wake for notifications

They have other options for when the screen is on but we dont care about that stuff.

So I’m going to test these two options out when I get home to see if this will have any positive results for me. I’ll try my best to monitor it while I’m at work but I mostly keep my phone on vibrate but I’ll definitely see if they screen still turns on or not.

Maybe this will fix the issue for you since I’m assuming you’re using the always on display so you can choose the option to Don’t wake screen for notifications (Thats if you have this option). Unfortunately for me my stupid Oneplus Device doesn’t have always on display, so I can’t test that.

I just tried both of those 2 hidden options. No affect at all. I also don’t use the always on display. Wtf is going on here!
I’m surprised that you found those two options. Nice work… Seem like the only way to get there is do the search using wake as keyword…

This is rings problem. They are prioritizing the apps notification as high priority like incoming calls. Yes ring your app is important but not that important.

Yeah didn’t work for me either so definitely that app like we suspected before. I felt that same way about the notification prioritization you mentioned.

We just got to keep bumping this thread once a week or so. Hopefully if it’s near the top other people will join in. If I win the lottery. I’ll send free pixel phones to all ring employees. Maybe then they’ll get enough complaints

Just to let you all know that. The ring app doesn’t wake screen for alarm notifications. Only for camera notifications. Very starnge

Thanks for all the replies everyone, glad to know it’s not just me!

Really just replying to myself here, but I want to emphasize a couple of points.

  1. This problem has existed since at least Android 9 and also affected my phones with Android 10
  2. I saw it on both my Pixel 2XL and Pixel 4
  3. No amount of customizing or disabling notifications stopped the app from waking the screen

And quoting myself since I still believe this to be an acurate summary:

“I hope that Ring does eventually take a closer look at how they’ve programmed notifications in the core app. I suspect the programmers have selected the wrong notification priority or type and that’s why it always wakes our screen. That or they’re telling the screen to wake as an additional action along with the notification. Either way, this app is behaving poorly by not following Android programming standards.”

The best temporary workaround available is to use the Rapid Ring app for notifications since it doesn’t share this issue. I also use the regular Ring app, with camera alerts disabled, for configuration and camera event history.

@john wrote:
We just got to keep bumping this thread once a week or so. Hopefully if it’s near the top other people will join in. If I win the lottery. I’ll send free pixel phones to all ring employees. Maybe then they’ll get enough complaints

Yeah definitely gonna keep bumping this thread. They need to slip in a dark mode while their at it too, app is too dang bright!

@SeaRob wrote:

Thanks for all the replies everyone, glad to know it’s not just me!

Really just replying to myself here, but I want to emphasize a couple of points.

  1. This problem has existed since at least Android 9 and also affected my phones with Android 10
  2. I saw it on both my Pixel 2XL and Pixel 4
  3. No amount of customizing or disabling notifications stopped the app from waking the screen

And quoting myself since I still believe this to be an acurate summary:

“I hope that Ring does eventually take a closer look at how they’ve programmed notifications in the core app. I suspect the programmers have selected the wrong notification priority or type and that’s why it always wakes our screen. That or they’re telling the screen to wake as an additional action along with the notification. Either way, this app is behaving poorly by not following Android programming standards.”

The best temporary workaround available is to use the Rapid Ring app for notifications since it doesn’t share this issue. I also use the regular Ring app, with camera alerts disabled, for configuration and camera event history.

The crazy thing is I tried the rapid ring and it worked like charm but a few days later it started doing the same thing and turning on the screen. Another issue I had was the fact that it used the same notiification tone for motion alerts and the actually door bell ringing. So sometimes I would ignore the notification tone when I’m home because I’m thinking its just a car passing by.

I recently got a Ring doorbell and love it. However, my phone screen lighting up every 5-10 minutes when motion is detected (my Ring faces my street) is SO ANNOYING. I did change my motion settings so I’d get less notifications from cars but wasn’t happy with what was being captured, so I had to change it back. My phone lighting up all day long on my desk is distracting and annoying. None of my other apps wake my screen, but this one does every time. I am tempted to turn off notifications, but that defeats the purpose…

Samsung Galaxy S9, Android 9.

Ring, PLEASE FIX THIS!!!

@karaj wrote:

I am tempted to turn off notifications, but that defeats the purpose…

No to worry, but turning off notifications won’t fix the problem. Your screen will still wake up every time motion is detected, but no actual notification will pop up. That’s perhaps the most annoying part of all of this. Even with notifications disabled, as long as the app is installed my screen kept waking up when the camera detected motion (Android 10, Pixel2).

So far, the Rapid Ring app doesn’t have this problem. So, I have that one installed only. When I need to manage the Ring doorbell, I temporarily install the Ring app and then uninstall it when I’m done.

It’s fixed everybody. Version 3.22.1 has solved the waking screen issue. My pixel 3a and my wife’s pixel 3 no longer have this issue. If your uninstalling the rapid ring app. Don’t forget to turn notifications back on for your camera in the main ring app.

Thanks ring team for fixing this:)

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Lol was just about to post on here but you beat me to it. Finally this bug has been squashed after 4 months. Confirmed working on my Oneplus 7 Pro running android 10.

Next up: DARKMODE!