I've had nothing but a bad experience with the Solar Security Cameras

I currently own 3 Ring security cameras. I purchased the Solar cameras because they are away from the house with no power connectivity nearby. Had I’d known the cameras would be severely limited because they ran on battery I would have not bought Ring cameras. I also own two pathway cameras that seem to detect motion every 5 seconds while also killing the battery - they are down to about 50%. I installed them in June.

I honestly wish I could return all 5 of the products and get a real security camera system. I’m going to list all of the issues I’ve had so far.

  1. Today, I had two guys walk down my driveway. None of my cameras detected them walking down the driveway. They were only detected at the end of my driveway.
    https://ring.com/share/6727616152334993275
    https://ring.com/share/6727616156636992984
    https://ring.com/share/6727616156636992563
    As you can see, all three cameras caught the same thing. I guess the pathway light was the only thing to trigger it
  2. Everyday the mail man walks in front of the cameras and it does not get triggered. Ever.
  3. The sensitivity settings are a joke. No matter the sensitivity I get blown up with false-positive alerts all day. It’s killing my phone battery.
  4. The motion zone menu is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, I can’t realistically be expected to setup the motion zones like that.
  5. Loud buzzing on all 3 of my cameras:
    https://ring.com/share/6727617543911429171
    https://ring.com/share/6710654845453784536
  6. Two way talk has never worked: complete static if you do hear it, most of the time you can’t hear it.
  7. Thirty second recording. Apparently any longer kills the battery, even though my battery has never dropped below 90% and there’s an option for two. This is industry standard. Wouldn’t want to chance being **better ** than industry standard.
  8. Support chat is broken but hey doesn’t matter since it’s a 20 minute wait. I don’t have the time to call in and there is no email support apparently?
  9. I have spent $1400 on devices not including the yearly fee with Ring and it doesn’t work. My dogs scared the people away today.
  10. Attached are several screenshots of the motion alerts. In one screenshot notice the yellow star (this is the guys in my driveway)… notice the sudden gap when motion should’ve been detected.

I really wish I could return cameras. I absolutely hate every second of trying to configure, reconfigure. I spent the entire summer (Installed in June) trying to configure these things. They simply do NOT work.

Does anyone else have a similiar negative experience?

Update: third camera buzzed today.

https://ring.com/share/6727681650586257275

Let’s help you out here. To start, the audio screech definitely is not normal. I showed a few team members here and no one has heard of it before (literally!). Do you have specific times that it has happened? How often has it happened? Do you mind telling me what phone you are using and if there is anything near by that could cause some sort of interference?

As far as your motion goes, how high is your device installed? It’s very important to think about your device field of view when installing and we have specific placement recommendations. I would check out these two help articles for more information: https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003821023-Proper-Positioning-for-Your-Spotlight-Cam-Battery-or-Wired- & https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016151332-Proper-Positioning-for-your-Stick-Up-Cam-Battery. Although the second article is for your Stick up Cam, you can definitely apply it for your Spotlight Cam: Battery. From your post, if you want to get motion detection as described, I feel you need to change the placement of each of your cameras. 9 feet up is pretty optimal and allows your camera to see pretty clearly the shape of a person traveling through the set zones. Please keep in mind, we do have great new features coming to your battery device soon and I will certainly keep you posted when that is released.

Also, do you have any of our Smart Lights? What you could do is place a bridge and a motion sensor at the front of the year and link the two with your camera to start recording earlier.

Once we get your device properly installed, that is then when we can perfect your motion zones and sensitivity slider. We want to ensure that you are getting all the notifications you would like to get and minimize the false alerts.

I also want to send over this support article, https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001858043-My-Video-Recording-Stops-After-20-Seconds, that describes the length of your video recording. As always, we will certainly send over your feedback.

Hi, thanks for the response. I am adjusting the locations of the cameras today or maybe this weekend. I have some ideas that might help with false detections (and allow me to turn it up to max).

I already have two pathway lights. I bought them for the exact reason you mentioned. I had to turn both of them all the down because recently they are constantly going off every few minutes (take a look at my attached screenshot). I’ve only had them since June and the batteries are about 50% down already.

As far as the audio screech, there is no interference I am aware of. I’ve had this happen when I first bought the ring at a completely different location. Now all 3 of them are happening. I do have a Synology mesh router (RT2600AC and MR2200AC) however the Mesh (MR2200AC) is hardwired. I do know Synology has several “hidden” SSIDs, but I’m not sure that is the cause of the noise. I’m in the city but on the outskirts. There is a lot of interference. I spent hours optimizing my network to ensure we were not sharing channels with neighbors etc… I am using the Galaxy Note8 (Verizon Wireless).

I really like the Ring cameras. Even though the interface on the app is a bit wonky, it’s tolerable… more tolerable than most. I’m confident that moving them might fix most of my issues along with the future updates Ring has planned (hopefully soon!).

Along with the audio distortion, we also have no luck with the two way talk function.

Edit: The audio distortion is completely random. It happened today on the driveway camera. I haven’t gone through all of the videos though because there’s so many.

Jennifer_Ring I can’t wait to see what those new fetures are for the camera’s with batteries. I am very much looking to being able to fine tune both of my side cameras better.