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

Summary: The Ring App will turn on the screen whenever a motion event is triggered.

The Issue: This often results in unintended phone interactions when the phone is in my pocket. Even when locked, this can result in dialing the emergency number. This issue has been reported on multiple forums, so I know it’s not just me.

Attempted Solutions: I’ve gone into the detailed app notification screen and tried changing the Notification Behavior for the “Motion Notification” category. The default is “Make sound and pop on screen”. I’ve tried all the other settings, including “Show silently and minimize”. Regardless of setting, the screen turns on, which is particularly strange for the “Show silently and minimize” setting since a notification doesn’t even appear on the screen or in the notification tray, but the screen turns on anyway.

**Not a Solution: ** Disabling notifications entirely for the Ring app might work (I haven’t tested this), but this would block the notifications entirely, which isn’t the desired outcome.

Desired Outcome: I do want to see the notification in the tray, receive appropriate sounds/vibrations depending on setting, etc. I simply don’t want the screen to turn on.

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Hey @SeaRob wondering if any recent Android or App updates resolved this for you? If not, I recommend uninstalling any 3rd party cleaner apps if applicable, as well as checking for a setting called ‘screen wake’ which some Android phones have.

Neighbors have shared some success with using an app called ‘Glimpse Notifications’, which allows users to control which apps will turn on the screen and which will not.

Same problem going on for nearly a year. Pixel 2xl. The update to Android 10 hasn’t changed the Ring app behavior.

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Hey @TonyOrlando. Have you found any success with the recommendations in the response before yours? Feel free to respond with anything you find that improves or resolves this for you. Thank you!

I’ve been an Android user for years so I’m pretty familiar with all the settings. No matter what I change on the phone or the app, my screen comes on everytime there’s a motion alert. My wife has an iPhone and has never had this problem. Not the end of the world but just this morning my phone started randomly dialing while in my pocket after a motion alert.

PS… Just upgraded to Android 10… same results

Sorry to hear this is persisting, I can understand how that can be frustrating. We’ve shared this information with the team, and will be sure to update this thread with any information once received.

I have this same issue and have considered disabling all notifications for the ring app, which wouldn’t be ideal.

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Hello,

I am facing the same problem as well. Repeated emails to Ring Support yielded no results even after a few months. I am on Android Pie as well and am very certain there’s nothing wrong with my settings - I’ve disabled the “Wake screen on notification” settings which should ideally be applied to all app notifications. No other applications misbehave in this manner apart from the Ring App. However, Ring support insisted that the problem was with my phone and not the App.

Any solutions apart from turning off notifications totally (which would defeat the purpose)? I just need it to vibrate (without turning the sceen on!).

Thanks

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Great news everyone, I found a decent alternate solution to the problem while we wait for Ring to acknowledge and fix the programming problem in the Ring app.

I recently installed the Rapid Ring app and notifications behave properly in this app. Plus, it’s faster to load to the live screen, which is what I usually care about when there’s a notification I’m not expecting. The only downside is that Rapid Ring doesn’t allow you to snooze directly from the notification, so it takes several extra steps to snooze a camera that you’re expecting a bunch of false notifications on (e.g. construction next door).

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.

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Why didn’t I know about this app? Thanks for the suggestion. Just tried it and does exactly what I need. Thank you.

Thanks for the workaround. I can confirm that notifications from Rapid Ring does not turn the screen on. However, I’d very much prefer to have only one app to achieve the same funtionality. Hopefully someone at Ring support can acknowledge this problem.

Same issue pixel 3a Android 10. I know my what around Android so no it’s not me and some setting. It’s the ring app. I hate it because when it goes off for motion in my front pocket. My phone screen stays awake because pocket lining is thin enough to keep registering touches. . <br>Please fix this ring

Pixel 4xl with exactly the same problem, unable to disable the screen wake issue even turn off Android 10 do not wake screen system setting.

It looks like nothing is going to be fixed until the team acknowledge the problem - when this has been unresolved for months. They are faulting the device, settings for the cause of the “light up on notification” issue when the problem lies with the app itself.

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I have seen 3 ring app updates over the past few weeks. Still no fix. This is issue seems to only affect pixel owners with Android 10. I think in Android 9 we had the option to set individual app notifications to wake screen.

The only other app that wakes the lock screen is the phone app for incoming calls. That’s ok because I’m going to pull out my phone when it rings.

Ring needs to look at how they have set the priority for the ring app. For notifications it Should not be waking the lock screen.
They got the rapid ring app to work the way it’s supposed to. Why can’t the fix the main app?

Pixel2 user here, recently upgraded to Android 10. I’ve been going nuts for months (Android P & 10) trying to figure out why my screen randomly wakes up! It wasn’t until today when I’m working from home for a change that I started to notice the correlation between screen wakes and the sound of trucks driving up and down the street (nearby construction that started recently). And, that led me here. Yay!

I can confirm that turning off Ring app notifications entirely makes the problem go away. This is obviously not ideal as I DO want to be notified when someone actually rings the bell. But, I don’t think I’d seen that detail actually confirmed in this thread.

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Moto Z2 Force here with the same issue. Screen turns on with every Ring notification with no way to disable it. So it is NOT just a Pixel user issue. None of my other apps do this, either. Looking for REAL solutions.

Just an update… Just bought a Pixel 4xl, Android 10. Screen still comes on for every notification. This doesn’t happen on my wife’s iPhone 11 or my iPhone Xr that I have for work. I’d say with reasonable certainty that this is an issue with the Android version of the Ring app.

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While not a real solution, I have uninstalled the Ring app and only have the Rapid Ring app installed on my Android phone now. I rely on other devices to actually configure the Ring equipment and do the other things one needs the Ring app for.

I am having the exact same issue. I finally disabled alerts tonight because I am tired of the screen turning on and screwing up things on my phone.

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