Ring Floodlight Skipping Recording

dasmphl · October 4, 2020, 7:40am

Why is my Ring Floodlight Skipping 20-30 minutes?

Boone · October 5, 2020, 9:09am

@dasmphl wrote:
Why is my Ring Floodlight Skipping 20-30 minutes?

I guess I’m a little confused . . . and it’s great that you included the two attached screen-shot pictures, but the end of one “Live View” recording is 02:58:03 and the next beginning “Live View” is also showing starting at the same time. In other words, they are time-wise butted up with no gap or skip between them. So it appears you commanded one “Live View” and then when it finished you immediately commanded another “Live View” to start.

But I am guessing it is more likely maybe the screen-shot was taken just before the next “Live View” recording was just about to play (so the time-display isn’t accurate)? If that is true, and you took the screen-shot just prior to the displayed time showing the true 20-30-minute gap. And all that means is that you commanded a “Live View” that ended at 02:58:03 and then you just happened to have commanded another “Live View” to start 20-30-minutes later, hence the 20-30-minute ‘skip’ between the recordings. That also means you do not have the “Snapshot Capture” option enabled, because on this time-line display there would be vertical hash-marks spaced at 15-minutes intervals between your recordings (with a 20-30-minute ‘skip’ there would have been at least one hash-mark). Without “Snapshot Capture” feature enabled, all video recordings will just be ‘butted-up’ together on your time-line without any hash-marks (as in your screen-shot).

From the screen-shot, since I can’t watch the recorded “Time-line” play, I cannot tell how long the duration of each “Live View” was. But I do know the maximum duration time any “Live View” can run is 10 minutes.

As per intentional design, when your Ring camera records/displays (from either a triggered motion, or if you use “Live View”, your camera essentially makes a “Video Phone-call” connection to the Ring “Cloud” in a manner that is similar to making a “Voice over Internet Protocol” (VoIP) phone call. For “Live View”, that ‘call connection’ is currently setup to only last 10 minutes. Live View will automatically turn off (hang up the Cloud connection) after that 10 minutes. You can activate the “Live View” again, for your camera to make another Ring “Cloud” connection, but again that will time-out after 10 minutes. (see the “Note” at the bottom of this link):

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/208144516-Using-Live-View

So unfortunately, you can not maintain a streaming display for longer. The Ring Video devices were not designed to maintain a 24/7 streaming video, since Ring started with a battery-operated Video Doorbell (that can ‘trickle-charge’ using the doorbell’s house wires). And then Ring continued to expand into security cameras, Alarm system, and I even heard that Ring Automobile Alarm and Dash-Cams are right around the corner! Since the Video Doorbell is running off the battery (the Ring Video Doorbell Pro is the exception), the ‘trickle-charging’ would not be able to keep up with the power drain, and eventually the battery will go dead (if the camera tried to maintain a much longer “Live View” or very long recording lengths). So somewhere during the Doorbell development, 10 minutes was chosen as a ‘trade-off’ between the option of maintaining a longer “Live View” and the battery life capabilities.

Between ‘motion-triggered’ recordings, which can last up to 120-seconds (depending on your “Video Recording Length” setting, there can be time gaps when there is not another detected motion to trigger another recording. That is why many people like the “Snapshot Capture” option, to take a still photograph at regular assigned intervals to help capture activity between ‘motion-triggered’ events. These “still” photographs will ‘play’ like a time-laspe video in 15-minute “batches.” You’ll also see hash-marks at 15-minute intervals displayed between actual video recordings.

So from what I can tell, from your description, the two attached screen-shots, and with my assumption that you indeed did command two “Live Views” spaced 20-30-minutes apart . . . that your camera is working correctly, without “Snapshot Capture” enabled.

I hope you find this information useful.