Ring doorbell not charging (NOT SOLVED!)

Odd thing, today mine is up 2%

I mean maybe it is charging at a rate of 1% per day (which seems ridiculously slow)

I’m thankful I found this thread. My Ring 2 worked flawlessly all Winter long, but yesterday I got a low battery notification. The app said it was hard-wired, but obviously it wasn’t charging. I pulled it all apart, charged the battery to 100% via USB, did a complete reset, and reinstalled using the washers. I also setup everything to use the maximum amount of battery, so if it starts going down, I’ll notice it quickly. If this doesn’t work now, I’ll call Support and complain.

I bought into the entire Ring ecosystem. Security cameras (indoor and outdoor) and the alarm system. I haven’t installed the alarm system or external cameras yet. Too late to return anything. :frowning:

Hopefully the washers will do the trick. If not, hopefully I can get a new device out of this.

I installed my Ring 3 in mid-April. After getting past some initial problems (weak WiFi signal, oxidized old doorbell wiring), the hardwired connection began to charge the Ring battery, which afterward stayed at 100%. Everything was working fine and there were no problems with battery discharge for several weeks. However, about 10 days ago the battery started to slowly drain by one percent each day. The Ring App showed it was still “hardwired”, but I disassembled things and rechecked the Ring voltage at the terminals to make sure. It registered 16VAC. I recharged the battery manually and reinstalled it, but that same discharge cycle repeated itself. I was about to order a spare battery to provide a ready alternate for no downtime, but I decided to closely inspect the actual battery contacts. They looked clean and shiny. Being curious, I then peered up into the Ring itself to check the mating contacts. It turns out those contacts are spring-loaded, like tumblers in a key lock, so I used my finger to exercise all the pins up and down a few times, just for luck. I reinserted the battery (slightly forcefully) and decided to give it one more overnight chance. To my amazement, the next morning the charge percentage had gone up! Within a day it reached 100% and has remained there ever since. Possibly one or more contacts got stuck? I don’t really know…

Thanks for the info. I’ve tried this and unfortunately has not worked for me, battery is still discharging?

3 days later and my battery is still at 100%. On the first day, it dipped as low as 97%, but then went back up overnight and has stayed there. So for me, the washers appear to have done the trick. I have HDR and just about every high-battery-usage setting set. I really hope it stays this way.

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I too am having issues with my Ring Doorbell 2. It is hardwired and had been working like a charm for a couple of years. Recently the doorbell went off line. I checked it only to see that the battery had drained completly. I then noticed that the doorbell was not showing that it was hardwired. I checked the wires and even decided to put in a new power transformer just to be sure. The doorbell still does not show as being hardwired and the battery keeps draining on me. I called Ring and they told me that I was simply getting too many notifications and that I needed to change the sensitivity, etc. That is not the answer. There has to be a firmware issue that is going on for us all to be having the same experience without a change in environment. I have a number of Ring products and have found in the past for Ring to be very responsive to customer feedback and issues but I am unclear as to why they have not properly addressed this issue. I have a second battery that I keep charged so that I can change it out when the power drains but it happens too often and is always when I am not able to address it right away. These devices are supposed to help us with home security thus we should be able to depend on them working correctly.

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Also same problem. Way to go Ring for not addressing an obviously major problem. I’m about to trash mine and go with another brand…

I suggest that Ring reprogram the firmware to leave the white leds off or dim to conserve power from the hardwired source. The leds can switch back on when motion is detected. That way the battery will not drain by itself when hardwired. I think leaving the white leds on all the time when hardwired is the reason why the battery is draining and not charging.

Not sure if this is just a lucky coincidence, but we had thunderstorms pass through the area yesterday and briefly lost power twice. Now, my hardwired Video Doorbell 2 is charging the battery again, I’ll watch it go down to 96% and check on it a few hours later and it’s back to 99%. But maybe there was a firmware push that same day and the breaker being tripped had nothing to do with it. I’ve had this problem for almost two months and suddenly it’s working again after I checked on the Doorbell after the power came back. Weird.

Nature intervened when Ring couldn’t get their act together.

I am also having this issue AND my Ring is abroad. No security from the system I purchased for security!

Update -

My Ring doorbell has once again started to recharge while being hardwirded. I modified my setting so that the Snapshot Capture feature was now turned off. It is a nice feature to have but what good is it if the doorbell is not able to recharge. That was the only modification that I made to my settings and since the doorbell appears to be charging correctly. I would be nice if Ring would notify you when they have updated the firmware on the device as well as for you to be able to see which version of firmware you are using so one could identify if there is a firmware issue or if something else is going on. For now I am just glad that it is functioning.

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Same issue as everyone else. Spoke with Ring Support and their suggestion is to lower the motion frequency to light. As per her explanation you wont receive notifications between a 2 minute time frame of an event. So I told her within 2 minutes anything can happen as I advised her a couple of months ago(same as when everyone started to experiencing the same problem)this started to happen. Prior to that I had all the new settings they pushed per updates/firmware and my frequency is always set to Standard. I asked her is this the resolution Ring is telling everyone that calls in for this problem? She said its just an advise…so I tell her if Ring is pushing all these new features and everyone is complaining its something on your end and not ours. Makes you only think maybe I should’ve used a real security system with its own base station to record events.

Turning off snapshot capture seems to do the trick!

I have been having problems since March and called Ring support 3 times without getting a stable fix. Now stable for 24 hours on hard wired plus the doorbell actually rings.

Thanks.

i have gen1 and now says its battery and not hard wired like it said for the last 4 years and and it will not ring indoor chime

Interesting problem. We purchased 2 new Ring3 and one of them gets lots of activity. It ran through a battery in about 2.5 days. We purchased an extra battery. Changes continued to be at about 2.5 days regardless of setting all motion off.

Purchased a ring 16v 30 doorbell transformer and ran wire into the steel/glass door to the doorbell. Also purchased a resistor as called for and installed all.

Noticed that with hardware power the light stayed on always. Without external power the light only remains on for a brief time then off normal.

Battery began running down faster with external power. Now it would lose video and require a battery swap before leaving the 2nd day. No activity at night.

Called support. Indicated the external power only adds 1% per day. If that is true then the light always on function uses more than 1% per day based on our results.

Support indicated a trade in value could be applied to purchasing the no battery Ring Pro model. Ring pro does not come with wedges. We used wedge to aim Ring3 slightly up. We had to purchase wedge kit also in addition to the upcharge for the Ring Pro swap.

Ring Pro is now installed and working. Still, after seeing these claims that power issues started after a firmware update causes me to wonder if that light always on problem should not have happened and it was some error in firmware.

Will never know because it is back to the factory for Ring 3. An extremely costly and time wasting series of events. The install is very difficult where it is located so the amount of time invested is something we never would have done if we had known in the first place. All the reading I could find never mentioned that they expected the connection of the doorbell transformer to have such a tiny impact nor does it describe the light then being stuck on and from what I experienced causing the battery to drain faster than before spending several hours running electrical to the doorbell. Oh well, hopefully someone planning a similar installation will notice one of these and decide to make the right decision first. We were tugged into it so that we already had time invested before each step forward.

Makes me wonder if your description of software change triggering events applies to this device as well.

Also, the Ring Pro seems to have lower resolution but I guess if we don’t have to change the battery every 2 days we can accept the lower resolution

@ArroyoOaks wrote:

. We had to purchase wedge kit also in addition to the upcharge for the Ring Pro swap.

Ring Pro is now installed and working. Still, after seeing these claims that power issues started after a firmware update causes me to wonder if that light always on problem should not have happened and it was some error in firmware.

Will never know because it is back to the factory for Ring 3. An extremely costly and time wasting series of events. The install is very difficult where it is located so the amount of time invested is something we never would have done if we had known in the first place. All the reading I could find never mentioned that they expected the connection of the doorbell transformer to have such a tiny impact nor does it describe the light then being stuck on and from what I experienced causing the battery to drain faster than before spending several hours running electrical to the doorbell. Oh well, hopefully someone planning a similar installation will notice one of these and decide to make the right decision first. We were tugged into it so that we already had time invested before each step forward.

Makes me wonder if your description of software change triggering events applies to this device as well.

Still having this problem in July. At least mine seems to stay at whatever % but will not charge. Used to charge just fine.

Also have this problem, it is a new issue- nothing has changed with the wiring. Shows “hardwired” but still no charge, mine stays at whatever percent (currently 50%)

I am Also having the same issue with my ring doorbell battery not holding a charge and therefore draining rapidly. The ring is less than 2 years old and I have had the issue for some months now. The only solution I was given by the support team was to purchase another device. After voicing my dissatisfaction with that response I was offered a discount on a new device. Really??? Why pour more money into a company that sells defective products that only last for 1 year!

I had the same problem and resigned myself to having to have two batteries so I could quickly swap them over. I did my first swap 10 days ago and the newly purchased battery is still showing 100%. For now, the problem seems to be fixed, apparently by a new battery. So I’m completely confused now. Is it possible that some batteries are failing to accept an in situ charge? I have a Ring 2 with the recommended resistor installed in line with a hard wired supply, which didn’t solve the issue.