Security Cams Feature Request

On motion, an option to send an email with attached images. This is a pretty common feature in IP Cams, and in many situations is more useful than a notification which requires action.

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Not sure when this feature was added, it must have been in the last update or two. When I checked the motions settings on my two solar powered cameras I was very happy to see it now shows a screen shot of what is covered now. My one camera I was not sure why it was not pickup up motion like I thought. This is a great help. Now I can tweek that camera for a little better setup.

I still wish I could setup motion zones like a plug in camera though. Right now doing Solar and two batteries my power has never gone below 88% on one battery and the other has always stated at 100%. Shocked how good the battery life is.

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I would like to see Ring update security cams with an outdoor weather station feature from each camera or if not possible from current cams, as a special outdoor add on module. The “Ring Weather Observer” could report outdoor temperature, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, UV and solar radiation, barometric pressure and perhaps report dew point and rainfall rate and provide detailed trends for barometer, temperature and humidity. I have ring cameras at my vacation home and would like to know what is going on there. It would be a cool add on for sure.

Oh yeah and by the way, I should get credit for the idea :smiley:

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I’m reposting here what I posted on Reddit earlier today, since someone pointed me to the Ring Community forum.

I’m trying to move away from the Nest Ecosystem, but man, Ring is making it tough without some basic quality of life features.

I’m really unhappy with changes Google/Nest have made lately with their API and recording indicators. I have 4 cameras (2 indoor, 2 outdoor), all with Nest Aware. I’ve never actually properly installed the outdoor cameras, because I really don’t like the idea of drilling through a wall to securely plug it in, or running wiring along my house to plug a security camera into an easily accessible outdoor outlet.

I love that Ring has a floodlight camera. I replaced my existing floodlight last night with the Ring Floodlight. Getting a hardwired external camera, and smart lighting which I can control remotely is a huge win.

I was concerned with Ring not providing continuous recording like Nest does, especially when they claimed that it was going to become available and then all records of that claim being scrubbed from the Internet. The motion recordings do seem like they’re catching things very well, however. So I’m pretty happy with that.

That said, I’m having a real hard time with the user experience Ring provides.

Notifications. Make it so we can tell at a glance of the phone if something requires more attention. Currently we get the most generic notification in the world, and have to open up the app, wait for it to load the video, and then scrub through to find out if anything important happened. It’s bad to the point where I’ve had it set up for literally less than an entire day and I’m already simply ignoring notifications.

  • Give more description than “There is a motion”. Everything is a motion. Is it a person? Car? Animal?
  • Tell me which zone was the motion in!
  • Give me a preview of what the camera caught, at the very least a still image to review without having to open up the app, wait for it to load the video, and scrub through to see wtf happened.

Website. It’s basically an afterthought.

  • I can’t change any settings.
  • I can’t create or modify or view zones.
  • I can’t control the lights.
  • I can’t share footage.
  • The history list is as generic and unhelpful as the Notifications, and would be improved with the same changes.
  • Give me the event history timeline like the phone offers for quickly scrubbing through all recordings from the day.
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I just bought two indoor cams to replace my Amazon Cloud cams. I did this because I want to have one source (and one storage fee) for all of my devices. But I was dissappointed that the following features were missing from the indoor cameras:

  • Geofencing that turns the Cameras off entirely when my phone is at home. I do not want to be recorded in my own house

  • And/of the ability to turn the cameras off on a schedule.

I also wish the apps would know the cameras power source and treat them accordingly -i.e. longer recording times for hardwired devices.

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It would be nice if the motion detector could be adjust independently of the camera on the floodlight setup.

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Hello,

I would love to be able to set multiple zones for my outdoor flood spotlight camera AND then designate which zone I would like to monitor for sound. As it is now, I turn off all volumne at night on the camera and record only as I dont want to be woken up multiple times during the night by cars on the street or people walking by on the sidewalk. I would like to set a separate zone closed in tight on my kids’ cars, and another zone of the area beyond, but only choose to hear the chime on the specific zone that I chose.
Please!!!

Thank you,

Debbie

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Update - This from support:

In regards with your concern, we are currently looking up into this option to be added in the near future, this means that it will be now the device owner’s discretion if they want to have a longer duration of recordings or a shorter one once the device starts recording. The main reason why we set it up this way for now is mainly because we want to make sure that the battery operated devices will not drain fast as well as you can save data charges if you’re accessing the videos in mobile data.

Watch this space, let’s hope ‘near future’ means… well near!

4 Likes

Thanks for passing that info along. It would be better if Ring support actually posted it themselves here in the forum.

I hope that they set this up so that we can control the time that the recording continues “after motion has stopped”. If it is set up where we can only select a time from when motion starts it becomes ineffective and wasteful of data. If I were only able to select 1, 3 or 5 minutes and I chose 1 minute, then I would not be able to capture a crime that takes longer than 1 minute. If I select 5 minutes and a bird lands on my driveway, I would get a 5 minute recording of nothing. This is how it is set up now with my Wired Floodlight cam. I get multiple 1 minute videos every time the motion is triggered.

I, along with a host of other Ring customers, would love to see the ability to “name” a device, and have the verbal alert in the app be able to use that name or perhaps just add a far more robust list of pre-programmed alert names to differentiate devices. For example, I have 3 separate Battery/Solar powered Spotlight cams at different points on my property, but when alerted of motion, the app does not give me the specific location, which is kind of important if someone is trying to break in. Instead, it just states motion detected by Spotlight Cam or something lime that…yet, via Alexa integration, my Echo Device will state the actual name I programmed for a particular camera. The last thing you want to do is fumble with the app trying to go through 7 different cameras before acting. I know you can play different sounds to identify which device, but it would be much more helpful to add 20 specific name choices like: Front Porch Cam, Side Yard Cam, Back Yard Cam, Pool Cam, etc.

Also, when viewing the dashboard, I’ve noticed that only the hard-wired cameras update more frequently, whereas you must update the battery-operated cameras manually by entering them. Ring should add a global refresh button to the dashboard so a person can monitor ALL in real time, at will. I understand the battery life issue for those without the solar panel, but with the solar panel, my battery barely moves off of 100%, so I feel confident that my devices could support my request. Even just offering the option would be a huge help.

Please consider a refresh button next to the global system snooze button. Ideally, one could designate how often to refresh the cameras in the settings. Would be great to have a real-time dashboard viewing option for the entire system too.

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Add Audio Alerts.

Our Arlo system had the ability to monitor for audio so we could start recording when the dogs were barking in their kennel.

I am a bit confused by your request. I have indoor, solar powered stick-up, and doorbell cams - I have assigned names to all of them, AND when I get alerts, the alert tells me which cam detected the motion (i.e. Motion Detected in your Backyard).

For reference, I am using the Windows and Android apps.

We turn off motion alerts for our kennel as the dogs set it off too frequently and just want alerts when they bark (aka on audio detection).

I would like alerts when cameras are offline. I think this is important for a device sold as a security camera. I had someone come to the house the other day and discovered one of my cameras was offline when I didnt get the motion alert. Who knows how long it wasnt working!? From previous experience I know that Nest sends an alert after a camera doesnt check in for 10 min. If Ring did this I wouldnt really have any complaints about the product. Thanks!

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^ agreed on this. I get a notification if one of my Ring Alarm scensors go off line.

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It would be nice if I could turn a camera off and not have the blue and red lights on. Such would be the case when I am home sleeping. The blue light wakes me up if my wife or the dog get out of bed and trigger the camera. Perhaps you could have a sleep mode.

Thanks!

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A simple slide switch is needed on the Ring app to temporarily disable motion recording by the Ring Spotlight Cam. The current method of doing this via Motion Settings-Motion Zones is inconvenient and not at all user friendly.

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Standardize the Ring app user interface between the Ring Spotlight Cam Wired and Ring Spotlight Cam Battery.

Anyone in development thought about taking indoor cam and putting suction cup mount over the lense? Would be perfect for putting on interior of windows to eliminate glare. Also, I have older Logitech cam that I mounted on my 215 gallon aquarium located in basement, would be perfect for monitoring fish etc

I would like to request that the lighting schedule be automatically controlled by sunrise and sunset times based on location. I hate having to adjust the times periodically as the seasons change. I like my light to turn on and off everyday when it is dark. Sometimes I don’t immediately realize that I need to adjust the time and I will have periods where the light is not on when it’s dark outside. I have some other automatic light switches in my house that have this option and the Philips Hue app also does this. Thank you for the consideration.

2 Likes