Ok,
I found this thread and I’m glad I did, because I was having some similar issues with motion detection. I’m a new Ring Neighbor so to speak, as I just got my spotlight cam battery on Saturday. I’ve worked with these devices for some of my clients, and they really enjoy them. It was either this, or an Arlo system. I chose Ring because of what my clients were saying.
I installed the cam, and initially used a gutter mount to get it up to about 9 feet. However, to get the motion detection to work how I wanted, I had to aim it up as initially I thought the blue area in that “motion zone setup” was the coverage zone. Eventually I created this 4-5 foot wide dead spot under the camera which I did not like at all. So, I’ve been going through this song and dance of adjusting it, eventually ditching the gutter mount, which I’ll end up using for the Solar Panel, and mounting it to the brick. On the gutter, the camera is at the recommended 9 feet. On the brick, its at 8 feet roughly.
I’ve settled on the 8 foot mounting spot, and I just now got it dialed in for motion detection. I want it to detect motion when people/cars/whatever are at the end of the driveway. Now here’s why I’m replying to this thread. Since Saturday I’ve had all kinds of motion detection “issues”. Searched the internet and found this thread. I’m finding a couple of issues here; first the community is screaming about a motion detection problem, and the community managers or helpers seem completely disconnected from whats actually going on. Second, this whole “motion zone setup” in the app…
After reading the thread, I too had the problem of the detection sweet spot being way too close to the house. Today was probably the worst… I had a delivery, and the camera didn’t pick up anything. I know that guy ran up the driveway to drop off a package and didn’t run up my lawn. Cars were driving by and nothing was getting picked up. I have the camera set to FREQUENT for motion frequency, the “sensitivity” slider is set to MAX, and I had the blue zone in the motion setup covering 2/3’s of the driveway. It didn’t pick up too much. Most it would pick up was my wife leaving for work in the morning, and me leaving to head on-site somewhere.
I read on another thread in these forums, from another Ring Community helper or whatever their titles are, that the blue zones don’t actually represent what the motion sensor is covering. At one time, we could apparently adjust the motion zones by “painting” them on the app. Now, you can’t do that; basically you turn the zones on and off in step 1, then adjust the slider in step 2. But adjusting the slider does not change the “blue zone” in step 1. A link to the thread is here:
https://community.ring.com/t5/Security-Cams/Adjust-motion-zones-for-spotlight-cam-battery-and-stick-up-cam/td-p/20401
I belived that, so I cranked up my sensitivity to max, as I wanted it to detect from 30 feet away. After 48 hours of testing, there was really no change. It wasn’t until I found this thread that I was having the problem of the motion detection NOT going off, until a person was 5-8 feet away from the camera. Yeah thats totally useless. At that point, I have either a decoration (as stated earlier in the thread), or just a warning cam to let me know someone is approaching the doorbell (I don’t have a ring doorbell yet… that’s next after I get this camera straightened out).
I messed with the slider, cranked it up to Frequent, but still there didn’t seem to be a change in the distance of motion detection. Adjusting the slider, made absolutely no difference whatsoever. I’ve now called it the “frustration slider”. But, I did test one thing out today… So Ring community managers, you better listen up, as well as the Ring app developers, Ring firmware developers, and whoever is in charge, as the customers in this thread have valid points, and the fixes you’re giving and the advice you’re giving is complete BS and DOES NOT WORK… Here’s why I’m saying this:
Initially, as I said before, I that “blue zone” in motion setup covered 2/3’s of the driveway. Detection went off at about 5-8 feet from the camera. I kept telling myself “the Ring community manager said to ignore that blue area”. I tested, and tested, and tested, and I could not achieve detection or recording 30 feet away from the camera. Keep in mind at the recommended 9 foot mounting, it still did not detect from 30 feet away with everything turned to max. Well, I tilted my camera up about 5 degrees or so. I didn’t create a deadspot under the camera, and if I did it is minimal. I went through the motion zone setup again, and the “blue zone” was now covering the whole driveway and a small part of the street. I did my test and POW I got motion detection at the end of my driveway, and recorded myself walking up the whole length of the driveway, up to the camera, giving it the finger, and then to my door (which takes me out of view).
So, while in a previous thread I was being told “ignore the blue zone! Just play with the slider!” by a community manager, I can tell you right now, that blue zone f’n matters!! If we had the ability to adjust the zone prior to the update on the app which took that ability away, guess what… its still in there. You’ve effectively taken away one of the most useful features of the cam, by NOT letting us paint our own motion zones!! You say it doesn’t matter and just play with the slider, but the test I performed tonight, that zone DOES matter, and it DOES inidicate where the motion zone actually is! You need to fix this big time. Because, if we have to physically adjust the camera, cut off our viewing area just to get the motion zone we want, we end up losing visibility on areas some people might want to see. I don’t think its unrealistic for me to see 95% of my driveway and have the motion zone cover from the camera, all the way to the end of the driveway.
And don’t tell me that blue zone in step 1 of the setup doesn’t matter, because, as I’ve said about 6 times now, it does matter, and the test I did proves it. Right now, I can see 90% of the driveway, which is acceptable for me. I just want my cars in view as the whole reason I got this thing was because of a car breakin we had. But, from reading this thread, it is NOT acceptable for some users here. Give us back the ability to adjust the zones manually, the way it used to be, or you’ll see a bunch of people go to Arlo, or another camera company.
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to point out the methodology that I used to prove this. Also, I’ve been messing with this thing since Saturday… It seems to me that setup should be easier to do than going up and down a ladder 1000 times to get the motion zone just right; that adjustment should be made from the app. And by now, it should be dialed in, but instead I’m still questioning if its even picking things up.
I love the product, I love how the app works. Its revolutionized how we see visitors coming up to our driveway. However, NOT being able to adjust that zone severly hampers the functionality of these cams, and I’ve burned up 50% of my battery because of the constant adjustments. I plan on getting the solar panel for the camera, and a doorbell in the near future so I’m invested into Ring for at least 2-3 years. But, if these problems keep up, and you keep taking functionality away, I could be gone after a year.
Please pass this post along to the powers that be… GIVE BACK THE ABILITY TO CUSTOMIZE MOTION ZONES AND FIX YOUR PRODUCT!! I’m only 5 days in to being a customer, and I’m already complaining. I was able to fix my issue if you want to call it that, but seems to me the fix is all in the app.
