Turning off floodlights when having a party?

Our floodlights are in areas of the backyard that get heavy traffic during parties. We have other lights installed to create more ambient settings, but the floodlight automatically turns on with motion ruining the mood we are trying to create. I haven’t figured out a setting to completely turn off the floodlight function during these events. Every setting I tried seems to revert within a two minute cycle back to motion sensing and lights turn on with slight motion. Please help me choose the right setting.

I am looking for the answer to this also. I called ring support last night and they told me that motion will always set off the lights even if you use the toggle switch in the app to turn them off. I only see the way to accomplish this is to turn off the light switch that the light is associated with but I don’t know what that will do to the connection with the WiFi. Also I don’t want it videoing my party either. There should be a switch in the app to turn off the light and video until you turn back on. I hope they have a solution.

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They certainly aren’t jumping all over answering the questions in here, that’s for sure. It’s driving this customer away. I was frustrated before I had a Ring floodlight cam…and now I’m more frustrated now that I have a Ring Floodlight cam because it doesn’t perform as expected and customer service has been very lacking for me. But as a community member for now, at least I will try to help.

I think turning off power completely is the only way to do this. If you are fortunate like me you have a light switch that used to operate an old manual light that serves the location. I was told by Ring and others that you should be able to turn it off and on and after a reconnection period it “should” work fine.

If you don’t have a switch to that one camera/floodlight location, you’d have to turn the breaker off, but that may disable other lights you want on.

From what I see in the app, they gave you the ability to turn the lights ON by a schedule, but not OFF by a schedule. And the bulbs aren’t replaceable as far as I know, so you cant even climb a ladder to unscrew the bulbs during a period you don’t want the lights on.

I’m new to this, so I could be missing something, but at least I replied…

If these are flood light cams, you should be able to turn off motion detection for the light in the settings. Just tap the 3 detection zones. They will say off then. I haven’t tried it myself.

Having spent some time now working with the Ring floodlight cam, it is becoming apparent to me it is a personal privacy breach.

It seems there is no way to disable the video recording. You can pause alerts to your device, but Ring still records and collects everything on video and audio near the device.

Unless you get off on watching your party goers live or recorded…AND listening to them, you should tell everyone that comes to your place that they and their voices are ALWAYS bieng recorded unless you turn power off to it.

Not a party I’d want to attend. Unless Ring gives me an answer I’m not aware of, I’m getting rid of this device and the Echo Dot it came with. Alexa is creepy too.

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I tried this last night and it worked. Turned “off” the three motion sensor zones and the lights never came on. Would be nicer to have a single button/switch, but at least it can be accomplished when needed.

I have the same issue. Disabling the motion for multiple cameras is not easy and still was not 100% effective. What options are there to turn off the light AND ideally video as well easily and dependably?

I have it on my old motion light light switch so I turn it off which turns off the light and camera and that seems to work.

I am frustrated this evening. Clear night at our rural home, and we like to go out and stargaze behind our home. But, Ring software does not allow you to turn off the lights short of shutting off breakers in the breaker box. It was very easy to quickly recognize the very poor design of the Ring software. My son-in-law tells me “I told you so” after he went with Arlo cameras. I am over $1,500.00 into this junk, and would rather not have to try to dump it off on someone else to recoup some of our money. Ring took a good concept and has failed to deliver. Regarding Ring’s business model, can anyone say Blackberry?

Agreed. Bad design not being able to turn the lights of if you desire.

You have to wonder what geniuses designed these things that it never occurred to them to have a simple off-on switch for both the camera AND lights right on the screen that opens up when you tap the app icon. This is really fundamental basic stuff. A homeowner may want to walk around his/her own home without triggering either. Ring makes it hard for the homeowner to disable the entire floodlight or system as they wish. It is completely nonsensical.

They finally DID help me with how to disable motion zones for the floodlight, but only AFTER they contacted me after seeing my vehement unhappiness here and an email where I expressed the same to a lower tier support person. They upgraded me to someone who actually could help…some. It’s still a slog to turn the video recording off…8 steps if I’m not mistaken. My wife, as a secondary user has zero ability to control any of it.

As far as the lights, all I can see is you can reduce the sensitivity to as low as possible. But bizarrely they didn’t bother with an actual OFF capability. Stunningly stupid.

I’m going to keep the floodlight, but there are several aspects of it I am NOT happy with. I am compiling my list for posting reviews, including that I regret purchasing the light/camera and kick myself for not just believing the reviews that told to me to run far away from this device. I take part of that blame, and for not researching other options better. A Christmas sale got me to bite.

Meanwhile, at least I have a camera where I wanted, and now, albeit a couple hundred bucks out of pocket, I have time to really research a product better designed. Or maybe Ring will actually address some of these fundamental things in the app or firmware and improve it. I’m not holding my breath.

This worked for me as well. Thanks!

this may not be easy for others to find so i will walk through it - this is for the IOS App:

  1. From the home page, click the top right drop down menu and select DEVICES.

  2. Choose your device to turn off the light zones.

  3. Scroll down and click on the “Device Settings” button.

  4. Select “Light Settings.”

  5. Select “Motion Zones for Lights”

  6. Click on all three zones to turn them off.

  7. Tap “Save” in top right corner.

now I can enjoy my lighting without the flood light ruining it.
hope this helps!

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And all it would have taken is for one of the reps to pop in to this thread almost a month ago to bring this to our attention. Instead we are out here bloviating about its ridiculous that this feature doesn’t exist.

I get it that the solution appears to have been there the whole time and was probably somewhere online on the web site; but just one post, just like you did, from a Ring rep would have nipped this in the bud right away.

Instead of the fact that this feature to turn off the zones exists, making me less cynical (by the way, its the same solution as stopping the video motion zones from recording, just in a different location), it just shifts my cynicism to realizing were are the beta testers. Does Marley and Chelsea and other Ring folks actually know how to use this stuff, know the answers and simply don’t tell us because the solution is actually there if you look hard enough? I’m beginning to think this is why certain questions here get “crickets” from the Ring folks.

Super aggravating. Thanks for the solution to your own question! Turned out to be simple and we’ve been twisting in the wind out here. Wish there was a forehead slap emoticon I could put here.

Sorry for the dumb question but how do you actually turn off the three zones?

Hi @Pbobes, happy to chime in here. To disable the Motion Zones for the lights on your Floodlight Cam, you’ll want to follow the steps below.

  1. Open the Ring App and tap the Main Menu in the top left.

  2. Tap Devices and select your Floodlight Cam.

  3. Tap Device Settings > Light Settings > Motion Zones for Lights.

  4. Tap each Motion Zone to turn it off individually.

I hope this helped clear things up! :slight_smile:

We moved to a dark sky area and fitted six cams around the whole building. It works great from a security point of view, but we really want to see the stars when we go out. It would be wonderful to schedule the lights not to come on at say 8pm to 11pm. Surely, it is not a major modification to have a home page button to do it. Sadly, we have too much invested in the stuff to change.

Hi @Visrod. You can add this suggestion for a scheduling feature for the lights to our Feature Request board. This will help us to organize and share your requests with our teams here, as well as allow other neighbors to comment and add interest, all in one place. Feel free to link that post you make in the Feature Request board here so other neighbors that come to this thread can easily find your feature! :slight_smile: