Amazon Echo detects motion from Ring Doorbell but can't show video

Hi Guys,

Looking for some help here. When I initially received my Ring Video Doorbell 2 and Amazon Echo Show 5, everything worked fine. I got notifications that would allow me to view the door feed with the usual “Alexa, who’s at the front door” statement.

However, something changed that stopped that working and I’ve tried everything to get things back to where they were including a factory reset of the Echo, reinstall of the Alexa app/disable/re-enable Ring skill etc.

I am still getting the movement and doorbell notifications from the Echo but I can’t get the video feed to display unless I permanently set the Ring Doorbell to Live View which eats up the doorbell battery. And this wasn’t necessary beforehand.

I also understand that there has been a skill update for the Alexa app that should actually automatically start the video feed without me needing to say anything but this isn’t happening.

So am a bit perplexed. I would prefer not to have Live View permanently set to on with the Doorbell.

Any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Mike

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Hey @m_i_k_e. The new update to the Ring skill allows Live View to automatically pull up when someone dings your Doorbell, but not even motion is detected. Alexa should still just tell you that motion was detected, and then from there, you can ask Alexa to show you the Front Door. If you have someone ding your Doorbell, then it should automatically pull up. Have you been able to have someone ding your Doorbell for you, and then you can check to see if it was automatically pulled up? In addition, when you get the announcement for motion, are you able to ask Alexa to pull up your Doorbell then? Let me know what happens if this is not the case.

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Hi,

Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, no video is being shown when the doorbell is rung. Alex announces that there is someone at the front door and it tries to connect. But stops after a few seconds and reverts to the normal screen.

And when asked to show the “Front Door”, Alexa simply says “Hmm, Front Door is not responding”.

Obviously, the Echo is receiving the Ring notifications. It’s just the strange that it doesn’t seem to want to connect to the video stream.

The only way I was able to get this to work is by setting the Ring Video Live Stream to On but this eats up the battery too quickly. And it used to work fine beforehand without this on.

Very strange. Any further ideas?

All the best,

Mike

@m_i_k_e Thanks for getting back to me! Do you have any troubles when pulling up the Live View in the Ring app? If you have no troubles in the Ring app, then it may need some work on the Alexa side of things. This can include removing the Ring skill and then reinstalling the Ring skill, or maybe needing to reset your Alexa Show to function with the device properly. Let me know! :slight_smile:

Hi,

Thanks for the message. I can see the Live Feed fine from the Ring App.

Alexa announces that there’s someone at the front door but won’t connect to the video stream.

I have previously tried to disable/re-enable the Ring skill but this didn’t make a difference. In fact, it seemed to remember my account details when re-enabled. Is that what you mean by “uninstall” or is there a way of completely uninstalling?

I’ve also done a factory reset on the Show and that didn’t seem to make a difference. Is there something else I should do?

Many thanks in advance and looking forward to hearing your next step ideas.

All the best,

Mike

@m_i_k_e No worries, you did it exactly right! It will remember account details normally, but it should help in refreshing the connect the Ring devices have to your Show to pull up the Live View. When was the last time Alexa was able to pull up the Live View on the show? If you’re unable to get it ever, even if there is a minute or two delay, you may need to reach out to Alexa support. I was going to recommend the factory reset of the Show if you were okay with that, but it looks like you did it so thank you for that!

I’m not quite sure what the factory reset looks like in all, but another neighbor in the past with this concern found relief in doing a reboot to their Show as well, leaving it unplugged for a few minutes because plugging it back up. The last thing I would recommend if the reboot doesn’t work is to possibly try bringing the Show closer to the router in the home or the nearest wifi access point, as maybe it is having a hard time connecting from where it is at. In the event this does not address the concern, please reach out to Amazon Alexa Show support here. Let me know how this goes! :slight_smile:

Thanks for your message. Well, gone through all of the options:

  1. Another factory reset of the Show.

  2. Uninstall/Reinstall of the Alexa app (it remembered the previously enabled skills)

  3. Lengthy power off of Show

  4. Disable/re-enable of skill

  5. We have a mesh wifi network which has a strong signal in every room.

The Show device responds to the trigger of a doorbell press and attempts to connect to the camera, but after a few seconds just returns to clock screen. Then when asked “Who’s at the front door?”, Alexa gives the “Hmm, front door not responding”.

Can’t give an exact time frame on when it last worked properly (time has slipped past so quickly during lockdown!). I’d guess it was March and I’ve since been trying to get things to work.

As mentioned, I can see the stream fine from the Ring mobile app. And if I set the Live View on in the app for the Front Door camera, it works fine with the Show device showing the video feed. But I didn’t need to do this beforehand, and obviously it eats up the battery live having Live View permanently set.

This does sound like a bug somewhere in the chain.

I’ll get in touch with Alexa support and see if they have anything to add.

All the best,

Mike

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When you say “please reach out to Amazon Alexa Show support”, do you just mean post something in their forum? I can’t see a way to get in touch with their actual support team.

I have also switched everything from the mesh wifi over to the old router so everything is identical to the original configuration. And it’s still not functioning as it did when purchased.

All the best,

Mike

@m_i_k_e Yes, I did mean that! My apologises for not being very clear. They should be able to help out in their support forum, but if not, you can also reach out to Amazon Device Support here.

Strangest thing. I have had the same problem. Made the same moves disable - enable, uninstall - install I can’t even remember all of it but in the end my usual command (through alexa) of “show front door” doesn’t work any more but asking “who’s at the front door?” works. Go figure. Good luck!

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Thanks. I’ve posted in the forum and am getting no support other than someone saying they’ve experienced the same problem. And as the person below says the same.

This does seem to be a bug with the Ring skill. Is that Ring’s responsibility or with Amazon?

It looks like the skill has been updated as the Alexa is now saying that I need to enable Live View in the app. This wasn’t necessary when I first purchased everything so I’m a bit puzzled as to why this is now needed.

Obviously setting Live View on will hit the doorbell battery life which is less than ideal. Particularly when it wasn’t necessary to have this set earlier this year.

Any ideas?

All the best,

Mike

Hi @m_i_k_e! If you are looking to use the Alexa enabled device to display or automatically display live view, this feature should be enabled in the Ring app. Check out our Community post that we put together, just in case your Alexa integration is not working. This post will cover all the best steps to explore and more! :slight_smile: