Battery Powered Stick Up Cam Not Sending Alerts

We just installed our battery powered stick up cam above our garage which covers our driveway, front yard and some of the street. We have all of our toggles set to record any and all motion (for testing purposes). We tested it tonight and it’s recording every single car that drives by (even though I have it set to people only) but it’s still only very randomly sending me an alert yet when I go to the app, there’s several videos recorded from car action. But yet when we walked across our yard and up our driveway in between the cars, NOTHING!!! No alerts and no recording. Can anyone help? What are we doing wrong?

1 Like

Having similar issue, motion recorded but no alert.

@HoppisHouse wrote:
We just installed our battery powered stick up cam above our garage which covers our driveway, front yard and some of the street. We have all of our toggles set to record any and all motion (for testing purposes). We tested it tonight and it’s recording every single car that drives by (even though I have it set to people only) but it’s still only very randomly sending me an alert yet when I go to the app, there’s several videos recorded from car action. But yet when we walked across our yard and up our driveway in between the cars, NOTHING!!! No alerts and no recording. Can anyone help? What are we doing wrong?

Hello @HoppisHouse ,

Sounds like you need to tweak some of your camera’s motion-detection settings. There are several things your Battery-Powered Stick-up camera is doing to reduce ‘false’ text-type ‘pushed’ Notifications to your phone App, and also trying to extend battery life. It’s a ‘trade-off’ and you’ll have to adjust zones and the following settings until you get Notifications and Recordings to best suit your needs/desires.

The Motion Frequency Algorithm (a little background info)

Ring’s Motion Frequency algorithm is an internal program that runs inside of your Ring device. It analyzes the traffic patterns of detected motions, looking for repetitive patterns. When it detects such a pattern, it essentially “sleeps” your device for a certain period of time, cutting down the number of Notification motion alerts you’ll get from the same set of stimuli. The more time a repetitive pattern of motion continues, the longer the time between issuing motion alerts. It helps reduce the App from constantly ‘pushing’ frequent annoying Notifications to your App.

Motion Frequency Controls (I believe this is a major issue for you currently)

This feature is only on battery-powered cameras. The Motion Frequency controls (in your Ring app) are used to adjust the Motion Frequency Algorithm based on the individual circumstances of your monitored area. Motion Frequency controls have three settings that can be changed at will and are useful under a variety of conditions.

From main menu (3 horizontal lines, upper-left-corner of Dashboard): Main menu > Devices > select your Stick-up camera > Motion Settings > Motion Frequency (often missed because you have to scroll to the bottom of this page).

  • Light : Setting the Motion Frequency algorithm to “Light” will maximize the system’s sensitivity to repetitive motion and the amount of time the system will “sleep” after detecting such motions. The result of this is that the system will more readily identify a motion source as something that shouldn’t be reported and extend the amount of time between reports. This will substantially cut down on the number of motion alerts you’ll receive and can help preserve battery life. The light setting is best used in heavily trafficked areas (such as yards where kids play) where the possibility of unwanted motion alerts is high.
  • **Standard: ** This is the default setting for the system and will cut down the sensitivity to repetitive motion and shorten the system’s “sleep timer.” This setting is ideal for areas where you don’t expect much in the way of human traffic but may be dealing with repetitive alerts due to animals.
  • **Frequent: ** This setting minimizes the system’s sensitivity to repetitive motion and by default will tend to react to each motion it detects as a discrete event. If it does detect repetitive motion, it also eliminates the system’s sleep time before the next round of scanning. This setting is useful for areas that get minimal traffic such as back and side yards or for areas that require heightened security. While it will drain the batteries faster than other settings, it also provides the most coverage for an area. This setting is also useful when adjusting your motion settings.

If you want to record and get notified of all motion-triggered events, you will have to change your setting to " Frequent." But this will decrease the time between battery charging, just as a tight time-interval would have on the “Snapshot” feature. More information is available online at support.ring.com and here is the link to Detection and Frequency:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003477106-Understanding-and-Optimizing-Motion-Detection-with-Motion-Frequency

And @HoppisHouse and @Smpear ,

People Only Mode is a special setting in your notifications that will set your Ring app to only alert you to motions detected that have been caused by people. While all valid motion events will still be recorded by your Ring device, People Only Mode can reduce the number of notifications you receive to only those caused by human beings.

There are some functionality differences in People Only Mode depending on how your device is powered. With your Battery-powered Stick-up camera, if you turn on People Only Mode your device will record most events, but usually only send you a notification when a human-being is detected. These algorithms try to distinguish between ‘hot’ moving cars and ‘warm’ moving people, but sometimes it will record (when it is in ‘doubt’ but not send the text-type Notification because it wasn’t sure it was a human being).

I think these above items will fix most of your issues, but if you are still not receiving notifications for your motion alerts, try the steps below:

  • Verify that your camera is picking up motion.

    • Review the Event History on the dashboard to ensure that there is a record for motions that took place during that time.
  • If there is no record, your Ring device didn’t capture an event during that time.

    • Double-check Motion Settings to ensure you have at least one motion zone set and optimized.
    • Make sure your camera is connected to Wi-Fi via the Device Health option in the Ring app.
  • Verify there is no Motion Schedule enabled during the time of the event.

    • You will see a clock icon next to your Ring device on the dashboard of the Ring app if there is an active Motion Schedule set to the current time.

If the above-mentioned solutions don’t fix the problem, check the notification settings on your mobile device.

Other articles from the Ring Support online pages that you might find helpful are:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042728431-Advanced-Motion-Detection-in-Ring-Devices

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047386552-Understanding-Video-Recording-Length-for-Battery-Powered-Devices

Also, you can directly contact Ring Support help, telephone at:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372-Get-in-Touch

Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19, their available hours have been changed also:

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041597471-Ring-s-Response-to-COVID-19

I hope this is helpful to you and gets you initially steered in the right direction :slight_smile:

1 Like

My cameras sense and record motion just fine, but I rarely get audible sound notifications. They ususally work ok after installing a freshly charged batter pack or reconnecting a camera. If I cannot get a audible signal of motion in my yard the the Ring system is useless to me. How can I be assured of getting an audible alert of motion ?