Ring App Feature Request

I’m reposting here what I posted on Reddit earlier today, since someone pointed me to the Ring Community forum.

I’m trying to move away from the Nest Ecosystem, but man, Ring is making it tough without some basic quality of life features.

I’m really unhappy with changes Google/Nest have made lately with their API and recording indicators. I have 4 cameras (2 indoor, 2 outdoor), all with Nest Aware. I’ve never actually properly installed the outdoor cameras, because I really don’t like the idea of drilling through a wall to securely plug it in, or running wiring along my house to plug a security camera into an easily accessible outdoor outlet.

I love that Ring has a floodlight camera. I replaced my existing floodlight last night with the Ring Floodlight. Getting a hardwired external camera, and smart lighting which I can control remotely is a huge win.

I was concerned with Ring not providing continuous recording like Nest does, especially when they claimed that it was going to become available and then all records of that claim being scrubbed from the Internet. The motion recordings do seem like they’re catching things very well, however. So I’m pretty happy with that.

That said, I’m having a real hard time with the user experience Ring provides.

Notifications. Make it so we can tell at a glance of the phone if something requires more attention. Currently we get the most generic notification in the world, and have to open up the app, wait for it to load the video, and then scrub through to find out if anything important happened. It’s bad to the point where I’ve had it set up for literally less than an entire day and I’m already simply ignoring notifications.

  • Give more description than “There is a motion”. Everything is a motion. Is it a person? Car? Animal?
  • Tell me which zone was the motion in!
  • Give me a preview of what the camera caught, at the very least a still image to review without having to open up the app, wait for it to load the video, and scrub through to see wtf happened.

Website. It’s basically an afterthought.

  • I can’t change any settings.
  • I can’t create or modify or view zones.
  • I can’t control the lights.
  • I can’t make my own clips or unshare footage.
  • The history list is as generic and unhelpful as the Notifications, and would be improved with the same changes.
  • Give me the event history timeline like the phone offers for quickly scrubbing through all recordings from the day
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I kudo’ed several suggestions in this thread. I have some further suggestions.

These suggestions are largely in the context of the ring pro, and new ring plug-in indoor cameras.

  1. The motion detection algorithms need to be *significantly* better. Right now my doorbell false detects motion every time a yard light turns on and off. Compensation for brightness shift without anything actually moving is something other brands (wyze, foscam, etc) appear to do fairly well with, but ring is terrible about it. Turning the sensitivity down doesn’t seem to help as I end up failing to detect people.

  2. I live on a corner lot, and have a lot of problems with cars turning the corner at night sweeping their headlights across my yard, triggering motion and alerts. While I don’t expect ring to prevent the motion detection, I would like to be able to silence alerts at night on a scheduled basis. Right now I can use a motion detection schedule, but that also disables motion triggered recording. This leaves me stuck between not recording anything, even if an intruder walks right up to the front door, or having my phone buzz repeatedly in the middle of the night whenever a car goes by. Yes, I can manually turn alerts off at night and back on in the morning, but clearly alerts could be scheduled too.

  3. Related to the car problem: It would be really nice to have two levels of motion zone… one that triggers recording, and another that triggers alerts. This would enable me to record anytime someone moves in the yard (including lots of false alerts from headlights at night) but only trigger an alert in the app if someone walks up to my doorstep. One of my current compromises for the lackings of 1) and 2) is to use a really small motion zone. I’d like to at least record on a larger basis.

  4. Sound level triggered recording. This would have to be set with a pretty high threshold, but it would be good to trigger recording if there are really loud sounds nearby (car crash, person screaming, etc), even if there isn’t motion in my motion zones. The Wyzecam inside my garage today documented the time at which the trash truck accelerated hard past my house today without collecting my trash by sound, but isn’t positioned to see the street. My ring doorbell recorded nothing because my motion zones are really small. High level sound trigger might provide a bit of work-around for problems 1-3. It isn’t really useful in all situations, but it is still useful. It’s even more likely to be useful with indoor cameras. For some people recording (and optionally alerting) when a pet yelps in great distress even if it isn’t in-frame can be useful. Why force them to use other brands to cover a such a simple to implement feature you are lacking?

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@Mattinmd I fully agree with you and some of those alerts are likely the sun reflecting on wind shields. I’m not so worried about cars so I purchased the Eufy doorbell it should be here soon ish to limit my alerts to PEOPLE. But since I already own the ring hardware and chime pro etc I will likely set it up to cover the back door side Alley where alerts for motion should be mostly people maybe the odd bird or squirrel.

I would be nice for us on the desktop app to get a multiview of all of the cameras with live feeds going for the wired ones.

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It would be nice to have added to IOS 3D Touch menu the ability to arm and disarm WITHOUT HAVING TO OPEN THE APP. (Since we don’t have a key FOB…hint hint)

Also an official iOS shortcut would be nice also

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Hey @Jsd ! I’ve moved your feature request over to this thread with the other amazing app related requests.

Thank you everyone for sharing and entrusting your feature requests with the Community, and rest assure we’re sharing these with the team in detail! Keep the great feedback coming :slight_smile:

Ability to acknowledge and dismiss permanently the huge orange bar in app that attempts to sell ring protect plans. I already bought multiple hundred dollar pieces of hardware now stop with the advertising. I only need to see it once then should be able to use the app without advertising.

Imagine if you bought a tv to use as a security monitor and it constantly advertised and nagged about getting cable on your screen?

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Hello, a few weeks ago I notice that the icons in my (android) status bar have changed. It used to be that the icon triggered by a motion alert was a person walking and the icon for a doorbell ring was a bell. Now they are both big rounded-edge rectangles (with the word “ring” inside them but so tiny it’s virtually invisible). I can’t imagine why somebody thought it would be a good idea to change the informative icons into a big white rectangle. Please revert. Thanks!

PS: One more change you made, on the Dashboard, the “Neighbors” tile, it used to be that if there were new events, the text was red, otherwise “0 new events” was black. Now it’s always red and I actually have to read the tiny number to see if there’s anything new there or not. Please go back to only having red text if there are really new events. Thanks again.

Hi, when I’m reviewing my recordings in my Event History on my android phone, if I’m trying to view the videos from a while back, I scroll down to find the one I want, I look at it, then when I press Back to go back to the list (because most likely I want to see the chronologically next video), the app goes back to the top (most recent) in the Event History. This is very annoying; please do not scroll the list after I return from viewing a video, leave the list right where it was so I can easily select the next adjacent video without having to scroll down and try to find where I was just at. Thanks!

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I wish there was a way to prioritize a ringing doorbell notification. If there is a motion notificaiton right after someone presses my doorbell then it overrides the doorbell notification.

I feel this app needs to allow us to view more than just one camera at a time. If I’m looking at 1 camera and have another go off… I have at least a 12 second delay. and I know it’s not my internet/wifi… I have a dedicated monitor for CCTV and am trying a floodlight intergration route. I feel multi view mode is very important to maintaining 360 degree view of my surroundings. Not that I’m paranoid or anything. But it’s nice to know while you’re out and about… Neh??

So as not to create multiple threads…

A couple more things I think will be great for the us, the end user:

The ability to implement an auto matic alarm for it’s own specific range threshold… something an attacker would believe is a regular full on security system. I can’t be the only one that is a hard sleeper in this world… orientation is very hard before coffee… and for me to wake up in the middle of a sleep… Blasphemy…!!

While we set up our motion detection zones, the ability to touch on the line and add more points of movable intrests, a smaller more defined threshold of contact areas, and more options while only being limited to 3 zones per camera. even if it is a plus feature… but if it is let me know and I’ll change my opinion…

Not much we can do about the current technology. But the pixellation in the outside corners of the camers is pretty grand.

I recall the older (pre-1990’s) floodlight motion sensors being able to pick up a frog hopping across the backyard at 30 feet away… while still ignoring the bugs/dust… Maybe implement some of that technology into the new tech??

We need more control at the Computer… Way more processing power that any phone on the market… A little more effort into the computer app would be appreciated… You are truely limited to basic functions while you have more available to you at a computer…

For the next model. The infrared is way to jumbled together… Ye’s it’s a spot beam but if you look at it in night mode it has a bit of room to spread for the same amount of IR LEDs…

This is a review and thought about the Ring Floodlight Camera from an individual not affiliated with the company. All opinions are my own of the product and not that of another corperation. Just an outside look of an individual that thinks security and how to make it better.

PS:

This was a message meant for Requested Features… :frowning:

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I would like to be able to schedule several things in the Ring Alarm.

GE Plug In Outdoor Smart Switch. The App allows manual on off, but you can’t set up a schedule (e.g. on at dusk off at midnight).

Would also like to be able to schedule Ring Floodlight on at dusk.

Would like to schedule alarm arming at a specific time.

Also, it wold be nice if light switches were made available on the “Home” screen with the Alarm arming options and camera views instead of having to dig into the alarm devices.

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I’ve moved these outstanding requests over to our feature request thread to ensure all of these stay in one place, for neighbors and for our team to see.

@tx_mountaineer In regards to GE switches and scheduling, Alexa routines will allow your devices to respond to the time of day, if a Doorbell is rung or senses motion for instance. An Alexa device is not required for this as the Alexa app is capable of carrying out these routines. However, there is no feature which changes the state of the switch based off of the Alarm mode, nor can a routine be made based off of security state (Disarmed, Home, Away), at this time.

@JohnDoe @tx_mountaineer Consider these requests shared with the team, and thank you all for sharing with the Community :slight_smile:

I often need to scan through a video clip. In vertical view it’s pretty easy with the big slider, but in the horizontal view you have to try to grab the little dot moving across the bottom before it disappears. Can you make the dot bigger so it is easier to grab?

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I would love to have a RING mobile device for my car. Do you have any plans for a mobile device for the future?

R. Ogbourne

Thanks for the suggestion, @ropaswan ! Let’s move this to our ‘Feature Request’ board. We’ll be sure to share your feedback with the team!

Hey @Mason345 ! This is a great request, so I’ve moved it over to our feature request board where it can be seen by our team along with other requests. We appreciate the feedback :slight_smile:

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GREAT! Vehicles today also have WIFI capabilities so yes if this can happen this would be AMAZING! Also a new line on helping to stop crime! I’m so excited! I hope it works out SOON! This can open the doors to so much! I.E…companies with work vehicles, government officials vehicles and employee vehicles, schools and daycare vehicles (we can see if a child is still on the bus! Inside video and outside!) The list is long for the possibilities! Also have you all thought about offering a ring device in the rooms of seniors living in hospital care so the family can check on them anytime? Sorry but there is just so much you can do with a RING device! ?

I love that you give the ability to add multiple motion zones, however, it would be extremely helpful to be able to customize the alerts based on zone.

For example, I want to be able to set one zone that captures all motion, all the time, but I do not care to receive alerts, just the recording. I also want to only receive alerts when motion is detected on my porch.

The problem currently is if I set the motion zone to the whole picture, I get bombarded all day with alerts. If I set the motion zone to just my porch, I might miss something occuring outside that zone. I undersetand if I set it to all I can mute/turn off alerts but then if someone comes to my door its likely I will miss it.

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When will RBAC be implemented into the app?

As the admin, I would like to allow others to use the app to arm/disarm/panic, but not have access to turn off any functionality or view the event logs.

thanks

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