Ring 2 audio problems

Just got my Ring 2 yesterday and have an Android Phone (Samsung Galaxy S10)

Very first test, when my wife arrived home I tried to talk to her at the door: she could not hear me and I could not hear her - extremely muted at both ends.

I have found this thread and the discussion on the Samsung forum - so my first thought was to go with the concensus to turn off the Event Timeline Viewer History - well I cannot find that setting in the Ring App! Nor can I find a “New Features” Folder (does that mean the ETVH is no longer a ‘new feature’ and now standard? If so, then how exactly do I turn it off in the interim, until a permanent fix is produced? )

One interesting foot-note - when I actually used the timeline feature to scroll to the event when my wife was at the door, that replays with absolutely normal volume - completely different to the actual ‘live’ event!

Yes, exactly the same for us, playback is perfect. The post about turning off video timeline event history I think was before they updated it. You are correct no way to turn it off. I have not called customer service again, been gone and just busy, but would love updates if others find solutions. Don’t do what we did and return yours for the 500 Elite! We thought it was connection so got the Elite which is hard wired to router. Ended up, it was both of our Galaxy phones, which we love and won't trade out! Waste of .? Hoping for a fix soon. Has something to do with the microphones on the Galaxy phones that cause talking to door to be garbled. Please do keep us updated if anyone finds resolve.

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@Sheteaches - one alternative ‘work-around’ is to get an Echo Show - I actually purchased one along with the Ring 2 as a Cyber Monday Bundle. Using that to answer the door does not exhibit the problem (nor my Wife’s i-phone - but of course like you, there is no way I’m giving up my Galaxy!)

Now that option as a necessity - for someone in your case where both household users have the Samsung phones - is especially disappointing - to have people like yourself be giving more money to fix an issue that should be addressed by the system provider! Especially now that there is no way to disable the event history timeline as a temporary work-around.

But of course a Show does not have the same portability as your phone - in my case I spend a lot of time in my home office so can leave plugged in there situated on my desk or move it to family room in the evening. Not ideal but at least it is somewhat of a work-around. If they weren’t $50 apiece (for a 5 - 8’s are $80) I would not mind having 4 of them. Maybe Amazon/Ring should comp us some of these until they restore the fundamental capabilty that is neccesary? :wink:

Another possible option with greater portability might be if you have a Tablet? I have an older Samsung Tablet and just installed the Ring App this evening - bit late at this time of writing to test its functionality with communication with the bell/camera so will update on that tomorrow.

Ring - are you paying attention here? What are you doing about this? You must surely realize that this is a HUGE segment of your served market - hopefully you are aggressively pursuing a solution. But by removing the ability to turn off the feature that at least enables its fundamental capabilty suggests you are not listening here. At least put that capability back until you can resolve the issue - at which time the feature to HAVE the event history would be very much desirable.

But for a choice of Event History vs fundamental operation (and again - this is COMPLETELY UNUSABLE for its primary function if you have a Samsung) that is surely obvious?

Yes, we have 2 Echo Shows and 1 Echo Show 5, they do work well, but we had someone come to our door when we were away we did not know over Thanksgiving and were unable to communicate with them. My Ipad works well, but I do not carry it around with me like my phone. That is when I feel like we need our phones to work for security reasons. Yes, I agree, I do hope Ring is reading and listening to these issues with Galaxy phone users! We all appreciate a shout out for any answers.

Unfortunately, the issue you have having is because of your phones. I have a Galaxy 10 plus, and my husband has the 9plus, and neither work well. Ipads and Iphones work great. It is some kind of glitch with our microphones. There are quite a few threads in here regarding this. We thought it was internet issues so returned ours and bought the Elite (500)! Please don't do what we did, it was a waste of . Even though we are hardwired now, not wireless, we still have the issues with our phones. My ipad works great, along with our Echo Shows, but phone audio is choppy and unrecognizable. Many of us are pleading for a fix bc we love our phones and need them to work with Ring!

quote=Sheteaches
we had someone come to our door when we were away we did not know over Thanksgiving and were unable to communicate with them

And that is the whole fundamental essence of the device right there and it is COMPLETELY UNUSABLE in this regard

Apologies @Sheteaches in failing to observe you already had Show and Tablet (pad) capabilities and of course you (or anyone else with Samsumg phones) without those additional devices you would have no capability at all to utilize the Ring for its intended purpose. The suggestions which you yourself had already discovered are for those who might not have considered those devices as interim solutions.

But again your message highlights the extremely restricted capability.

I might have found the problem to clear up the static issues with the S9. Since our devices hear everything we say regardless if we know it or not, I went into every single app I have on my phone and disabled the microphone from those apps I don’t use the microphone for. You would be surprised by how many apps have the microphone setting turned on, like Google, Yelp for example. Now by doing this you can’t use the microphone feature for that app (obviously) which is the downfall; but for me I am fine actually typing my text and not speaking into a device and then having the text be all jacked up because I did not talk clear enough.

To disable the microphone for each app:

Go to Settings in your phone

Scroll down to Apps

Click on the app

Scroll down and under the “App Settings” area click on “Permissions". There may or may not be a microphone option; from there you can toggle it off or on.

Anyway, this worked for me, hopefully it works for others having the same issue as I have spent days googling this issue and how to resolve.

To disable the microphone for each app: Go to Settings in your phone Scroll down to Apps Click on the app Scroll down and under the “App Settings” area click on “Permissions". There may or may not be a microphone option; from there you can toggle it off or on.

Once you have your list of apps, you can actually click the three dots in upper right and select app permissions and that will list by permission type - scoll to microphone and it will show all the apps for which that is enabled and you can deselect as appropriate

Now - having said that I tried this - still have the issue so that did not make any difference for me.

Another thing I tried was deleting the Ring app and ‘rolling back’ to an older version via an APK - the last version I found which still had the ‘new features’ where the event history timeline could be disabled was 3.18.0 from Sept 1019 - https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/ring-com/ring-always-home/ring-always-home-3-18-0-release/

That did not work for me either - the sound is still breaking up and very low volume.

I felt sure that given others comments from earlier, that rolling the app and disabling the event history would have at least given that interim solution - but it did not.

In fact my current config is with BOTH of these suggestions employed - disabling all the mic permissions (except Ring) AND rolling back the app/disabling the event history and still the same inherent problem.

Actually I have to say the volume is quite low even when using my wife’s i-phone - it at least does not break up, but you have to be VERY close to the ring to hear the communication on the phone and similary outside, the volume is just not that great from the RIng Device unless again, very close to it.

Am becoming more & more disillusioned with this device …

Travis3, thank you. I will try turning off the ones I do not use. However, this afternoon I also had some time to google a bit more and found out that some people have found out why there is an issue with the newer Galaxy phones and the Ring App. The newer phones have two built in microphones. One at the bottom, and one at the top. From what I read, this may be the root problem of why our voices are garbled when we speak through the app. Apparently IPhone only has one microphone, at bottom of phone. With the two, it is creating a problem, soooo the people I read said they found that if they only talked through the top mic of their phone that the quality was much clearer. My husband and I tried and it, and it certainly was much better! So for now, also try only talking through the top of your phone and see if it is clearer. It did work much better for us! Hopefully Ring is following these threads, though, and are working with tech for a fix. Until then, maybe this will help the faithful Galaxy phone users.

I can add to this it isn’t just Samsung phones, we have a Motorola G6 play and G7 plus and they both experience the same problem with crackling/noise listening to the doorbell even when it’s silent and distortion when someone does speak.

As someone else has pointed out peviously if you listen to the same recording on the Cloud the noise element is there, but it’s a lot quieter, so almost like the phone is amplifying the noise considerably.

Is it possible to install an older version of the app without the new Timeline which now can’t be turned off?

Ignore my previous question about installing older versions, just seen what DEcosse

said above… :cry:

Just for information purposes, I just checked the specifications for my phones and in terms of microphones the G6 has 2 and the G7 has 3, so could indeed be related.

@Stoat wrote: Is it possible to install an older version of the app without the new Timeline which now can’t be turned off?

So I revisited this:

I found another thread discussing this issue - https://community.ring.com/t5/Video-Doorbells/ring-doorbell-2-community/td-p/105 - actually that one is probably a better one to continue discussion - it at least has the participation of the Ring Moderator and at least one other Ring person that I recall;

In that thread @Jennifer_Ring said on page 9 on 9/30/2019

Hi neighbors! The prior audio concern has been resolved with Android App update 3.17 and beyond. If you have the most recent Android App and are still experiencing audio quality concerns, it would be best resolved through opening a ticket with our 24/7 support team. We recommend also checking your network connection as low signal strength is the most common culprit of low audio/ video quality. Thank you..

Well, we all know it has NOT been fixed!

However since there was at least ‘something’ done in that regard I tried another older version PRIOR to 3.17 i.e. 3.16

3.16 does indeed behave better when you disable the Event Timeline in the ‘New Features’ settings so it is certainly worth rolling back to this version

One thing to note - you MUST disable auto-update to prevent it from reverting to the latest version.

Link to 3.16 version: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/ring-com/ring-always-home/ring-always-home-3-16-0-release/ring-always-home-3-16-0-android-apk-download/

(you will need an explorer type of app so you can navigate to your download folder to launch it - I use X-plore)

Here are some other items of note:

I have noticed that in the 3.20 when you first enable live view, for the very first instant, you can hear the background noise outside (in my case I can hear the road traffic noise from the main road about 250’ away) VERY CLEARLY and then it immediately (within couple of seconds ) mutes to a much lower level. This suggests that something in the Firmware is attempting some noise-cancellation and I think it is responsible for the overall volume being attenuated. With 3.16, there is no attenuation and the background noise remains at full volume. When there is no traffic from main road, I can even hear the birds chirping!

From that thread referenced above, there was another suggestion that live event logging could be enabled and the work-around was to simply quickly go to the previous logged event and immediately back to live view. At least in 3.20, this did not seem have any effect for me (someone might like to try this and see if it works for them - I don’t have anyone else ‘handy’ at the moment to help test this)

And as per @Sheteaches, it definitely helps to talk into the top mic’.

So I would say the ‘best’ performance in the interim is going to be to roll back to 3.16, diable the Event Logging and try to talk into the top mic’.

I’m traveling, but this looks like good info. I’ll try to digest it when I get home. Thank u!

It’s not just Samsung. I’m having same problems with Apple phones.

Which Apple phone is giving you audio problems?

7 plus

Check that your microphone holes are not clogged up with debris. We have a 7 Plus and it works fine.

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It’s the newest phones, they now have multiple microphones. My older s5 works. I think dual mics came out on 8s or 9’s.?

I own the 11 pro Max. And trust me, I don’t have that issue. My wife owns the 7 Plus and my son owns the the X. I only had problems when I bought a Note 10 Plus.

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