Ring Indoor Cam making 'clicking' noises?!

Products Security Cams
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Hello Ring Community!

I’ve been a big proponent of Ring products for some time. Have a few hardwired outdoor security cameras and a hardwired Ring doorbell. Awesome products (only wish they had a warm temperature light… that’s nitpicking though).

Anyway, I decided to start to build up home security measures indoors. Figured I’d start with a few indoor cams. I purchased the standard Indoor Cam that is powered by mini-USB. Set it up in our living room, which gives us a good view of our entire living area.

But, for many nights I’ve noticed this unusual clicking sound coming from the area of our fireplace. For days I’ve been trying to figure out what it was… maybe a bug in some of the wood stacked there? Last night, like an ■■■■■, I stood by the wood and waited for the clicking sound to happen. It was happening all night, again. My wife and I were starting to think our house was haunted. Every time I walked over to the wood pile, the clicking would stop. As soon as I walked away, it would start back up again. Seemingly random.

In complete frustration, I ran over to the wood pile, again. This time I heard the sourse of the ‘click’… it was the Ring Indoor cam! I would walk away and it would click more. I would get close the infrared light would go off and make the clicking noise.

So I went into the settings and turned the infrared off and on. Each time the light little red light went off or came back on, it would click.

Simple solution, right? Just turn off the infrared.

Nope. It would continue to make the clicking noise and be in tandem with what was on the television. It was a dark room, after sunset. When the TV screen got bright, it would click. Switch to a darker scene, it would click.

Even more frustrating, I had the live feed off and had it set to not record any motion. But the camera was clearly still adjusting to the light in the room. Must be some sort of shutter in the camera making the noise.

Needless to say, it’s EXTREMELY distracting to be watching TV and hear this camera click repeatedly. I tried one of the other cameras in the same location… and sure enough… same deal. So it’s not a problem with this one camera. Must be across the entire line of cameras.

Is there any solution to this? I bought three cameras in a bundle on Ebay but the 30 day return window has passed. So it seems I’m stuck with these cameras at this point. I REALLY want to use them as I love the Ring ecosystem and App, but I just can’t use them if they’re going to be making clicking noises all the time. Especially in our living room where it seemingly happens with some kind of lighting threshold being thrown off by the TV. In regular daytime lighting in the room there is no issue with the clicking noises.

Can anyone help? Or am I up the creek here?

5 Likes
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Hey @raven13. Thank you so much for taking the time to detail out your experience and what is happening with your Indoor Cams. I’m looking into this matter with my advanced technical support team to see what could be causing this on the Indoor Cam, but I think you’re on the right track with your observations for sure! Could you do me a favor and let me know what the RSSI is for all of the Indoor Cams that you have setup?

In addition, a video example of this clicking sound would be fantastic! Once you have this recorded, you can attach it here. You will not be able to attach an MP4 as your reply, so you can upload it elsewhere to link here, or compress the MP4 file into a ZIP file to attach here, as ZIP files can be attached. Once we have this information, my team can look into this more! Thank you in advance. :slight_smile:

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Hi Chelsea! Thanks so much for replying… I really appreciate it. I’ll try to get my own video tonight, but here’s a video I found online. Seems it’s a pretty common issue:

https://youtu.be/Uaf7zRfpXmE

RSSI on this particular cam is 37.

On our Garage Cam (outside): 72.

Out back on our deck: 64

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Hi,

I’ve just setup my new Indoor Cam and have this too. For me it’s about every 5 seconds and seems to only be when live-view is enabled.

RSSI - 69

1 Like
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Found another thread here with the same problem https://community.ring.com/t5/Security-Cams/Indoor-cam-clicking-noise/td-p/4274

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Here are two videos I did last night. One is with the infrared (IR) on (the red light), and one off. I had a flashlight and as I turned it on or off, you’ll hear the clicking noise about a second later. Doesn’t matter if you have the IR on, or not.

Hope this helps with diagnosis!

The clicking is loud and can be heard across a room. Especially under quieter conditins at night. No question.

With IR Light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsURSFKS980

Without IR Light:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gU30fLToMA

I’ve tried this with all three of my indoor cams with the same result.

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7

The click is the IR filter engaging. You switch off the IR leds, but it doesn’t stop the IR filter switching in/out.

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Correct.

In either scenario, the clicking is incredibly distracting. It’s hard to watch TV at night with the Ring cam repeately clicking at random. I either need a solution, or I can’t use these cameras. Simple as that.

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Hi Chelsea… any word about this? The more I do research on it, it appears it’s widespread and a commonly known issue. Looking at Amazon reviews alone ellude to this issue. One reviewer said customer support told him that’s just what the camera does when it switches into ‘nightvision’.

Is there anyway to fix this issue with some sort of firmware update or is it a situion of ‘it-is-what-it-is’?

Is there a ring camera alternative that doesn’t make these noises? I may be able to live with it if I have a camera in my garage or the basement. But not in the living room. I’d like to have a quiet camera in our living room.

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My cam has same issue. What can be done about it?

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I’ve just joined ring community to ask this exact question. Here I am watching a film on my own, a scary one! And I can hear this clicking noise whenever I move. It’s the ring camera and it’s driving me bonkers!
I know it needs to adjust to the lighting in the room but I don’t see why it does it when it doesn’t need to be recording? I have the settings to disarmed (it’s linked to my ring alarm) so it wouldn’t even need to detect any motion.

Do we know if there has been any update on fixing the noise or why it’s doing it when it doesn’t need to be recording or detecting motion? :relaxed:

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I haven’t heard from anyone about it yet. However, I did try another brand (the new Ecobee camera). And it’s WORSE than the Ring. The clicking is louder, does it at the same times at the Ring, and there’s three , bright, red LED lights that come on… vs. the one that is much fainter on the Ring. And the Eco gets really hot to the touch! Yikes. So I just moved my Ring camera to a different part of the room where I wouldn’t notice the sound… although it’s not where we’d like it to be. Where it’s at now doesn’t get a full view of our living area. Paired with the other Ring cameras around home, outdoors and indoors, it’s a great system… especially when paired with a few Amazon Echo’s.

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Have this been resolved? I have one door ring and two ring outdoor cameras and all of them makes a loud cracking kind of white noise when on live vie. It weren’t doing this, it sudently started one day, so I think is update related.

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Hi @Cgonzo1970! Audio feedback, or poor audio quality, during live video is often related to wifi, mobile device, or Ring app communication variables. The best first thing to check is your wifi signal strength, or RSSI, which can be found in the Device Health section of your Ring app. Check out our Community post about RSSI for tips on optimizing this signal strength.

Removing and reinstalling the Ring app is a quick way to ensure it is up to date and optimally integrated with your mobile device. On your mobile device, try testing video on wifi only, and then on data only, to see if either connection is more efficient. Please also ensure bluetooth is disabled. Feel free to let us know how this goes! :slight_smile:

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My cameras started doing same clicking sound after 1 week of installing them. Turned color mode on with night mode and the clicking stopped. Not sure why that happens as the setting were not changed at all previously. If you have any issues, don’t hesitate to contact ring.com
They have helped me and even exchanged my product even thought I purchased it from Home Depot. They have pretty good customer service.

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Hello,

My wife and I ran into the same problem. Was driving us crazy. After trying all suggestions in this thread and calling Ring Customer Support, we finally found what was causing it.

The clicking sound was the IR / Nightvison turning off and on. The reason this was happening was because of a flood light that was in our front yard, was pointing directly in the eye of the ring (not on purpose). After a minor adjustment to the angle of the flood light the clicking instantly went away.

My conclusion is that bright lights in the view of the Ring’s eye, could cause it to switch back and forth from Nightvison to daytime settings.

This may not be the case in your issues, but I strongly suggest looking at what bright lights could be affecting the performance of the Nightvison setting.

Hope this helps.

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I am having this issue as well on my one indoor camera that I just bought that is facing the TV. It’s the only area I can put the camera based on outlets and visiblity. My RSSI is -29 and right by the wireless router. I have noticed that if I pause the tv, the noise stops. But when the TV is on and moving, that’s when the clicking stops. I thought maybe it was the motion on the tv triggering it and have turned off motion settings, disabled the live feed and motion at the same time. Turned of the IR settings. EVERYTHING and still no luck. It’s very annoying.

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It’s definitely the nightvision filter kicking in. My issue was the same as yours. If you’re in a dark room and the only thing on is the TV, when there’s a darker scene on TV, the nightvision will kick in, making the clicking noise. When a brighter image is on the TV, the nightvision will turn off, again, clicking as it does so. My solution was to move the camera away from the TV set and turn the camera away from it as well a bit if you can. That pretty much stopped the issue for me. I tried a couple other competitors cameras and those click even louder! The Ring cam is the best of the bunch! Just try a different placement if you can.

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Mine is also making an odd clicking noise and it seems to be flashing as well since my app alerts me it’s making the noise because of the seemingly flashing of a light.

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Same here. just got it a couple days ago. I actually have the wired indoor stick up mini (wired compact indoor cam).

I have it in disabled mode (no live view, no motion and no motion record) both toggles are off in mode settings for this cam when in Disarmed Mode, which I am currently using when im home while I get everthing set up.

We have it in our living room and notice it CLICKING mostly at night with most of our lights out. just the TV on and a 8 watt LED lamp off to the side 12 feet up against a wall on the right of cam and another light in a connecting room(kitchen) that is far off to the right of the cam but in its view. the QLED 55" TV is directly in front of the CAM about 18 feet away. Cam is at about 6 feet high.

we also have a ceiling fan just right off of center that has lights off.

we notice the clicking anytime the TV switches to a white or bright video image. It clicks ON and a few seconds and after the image darkens some it goes OFF. or visa versa (propably is in infared mode when TV is dark and switches it OFF when TV is bright and back ON when TV goes darker.

it is hit and miss with the TV as it requires the image to go bright.

However the Fan lights when turned ON and set to highest brightness makes it happen every single time the light is turned ON and then clicks again a second or two after the fan light is turned OFF (I am guessing it goes back into IR mode.)

But to me the kicker is I have the mode to No motion detect and no Live view in DISARMED MODE. I would think the cam would be essentially OFF. But I guess it has some power and the IR controller is still functioning even with cam esentially OFF. nothing is being recorded in this mode and live view is not possible in this mode.

But it incessantly is clicking ON and OFF, OFF and On. whatever.

it bugs my wife and I to no end and the dog is not a fan either.

i have tried putting a coiled up opaque paper cyclinder over the cam and it seems to limit the clicking sound caused by sudden TV brightness changes.
But it still occasionally happens for the Fan light. it is 90% better but still does it sometimes. maybe changing to a dark paper cylinder cover over the cam would fix it. :wink:

But that is a dumb thing to have to do for a Cam. I just want it turned ON in Armed/Away mode when house should be empty so I can detect movement and capture images and video of what caused it. I dont care if it clicks when I am not there, but I would have to remember to remove the paper cover from the cam each time I go out. not going to happen.

Surely there should be a.way to turn off the IR switching when the cam is in Motion Off and Live View Off mode. it should be in a functionally dead OFF mode but the IR mechanisms still seems to keep on working.

Please fix it.

1 Like