Ring doorbell not charging

My ring won’t even charge when plugged in inside the house.

Hi neighbors – I’m going through and collecting necessary information from this post and compiling it into a report for my team to review. Thank you for your patience!

There are 2 main themes here.

Some issues probably need a firmware upgrade to fix what started with the last upgrade.

However, some of us also have proof positive that the On Battery not charging issue when connected to AC and with a regular mechanical chime is positively a lack of spring-loaded pin to metal pad, where the spring is “sprung” and the pin fails to contact the pad.

My mechanical repair lasted about a month. I likely will do what one person did, namely drop a blob of solder on the pads to make them reach further.

Even that likely is temporary.

This design needs a rework and we should not have to rebuy just because of age (2 years or so) and a bad design.

If you can get this message across to the Ring design and customer service teams I believe you will have a lot of very happy users who, like myself, are thinking about changing brands because of this.

Thank you. Please feel free to reach out.

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Gentlemen,

I got doorbell 2 & I faced couple of issues. First off all, I’ve installed the doorbell by myself & I’ve attached it to the solar panel. It worked initially for only 2 days then it failed totally. In addition to that, the dealer in my place change the device for me for free & the new device was working fine except not charging from the solar panel. I’m living in a place where the temperature between 120 to 130 F during summer (Saudi Arabia). Now again the new device failed as the previous one due to unknown reason. With all respect to the features of this device I’m totally disappointed with the quality of such kind of product I’m not going to recommend it to anyone.


Looking forward to hear from you.

I am having the same issues as everyone else. I hardwired my Ring Doorbell 2 when I initially installed it, and it charged up fine. Then a few months later, it indicated that it was on Battery and discharged down to 11%. I took it off and started to charge it offline, replaced the transformer with a new 24-volt one, and even replaced the chime. When it was all back together as an entirely new system, it indicated that it was Hardwired and was charging.

When it got up to about 73% over a week or so later, it now says that it is again on Battery and it is now discharging again. I have checked the power into the unit, and its exactly on 24-volts. I checked the contacts to make sure they are clean and making contact. Also, I live in the Seattle area, so with our temperate year-around climate, that is definitely not the issue.

My annual renewal is up next month, and I likely won’t renew it because of all of these issues (if you aren’t getting the service, why continue to pay for it). And, until this is all straightened up, I am not about to go out to buy a new Ring unit or expand my Ring system. I am looking for other manufactuerer options in the event that this is not solved soon (I have been watching the forum for 1.5 months now, trying to deteremine what the issues and solutions are).

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Search for other posts with my id in them, for an explanation of a mechanical solution.

I installed my unit with a professional elecrtician in June, and today I am seeing warnings to recharge the battery, which I pulled out and now chargin, but why should I recharge if I went trough the expense of buying an electric unit and paying a professional to install it so I didn’t EVER had to do this?
Frustrated.

Search the forums here for other posts from my id. There is an internal mechanical issue with these units that might be your problem.

I have put a dome of solder on the gold pads which attach the screws to the AC terminals, inside the unit. As noted in a previous post it takes a #000 screwdriver which is included in this set you can get from Harbor Freight Tools. Photo of the back side with the UPC visible. This set has a lot of precision bits.

This solder dome presses both gold pins in, hopefully deep enough that they will remain in contact and not lose any further spring tension.

Weak point in the design of this unit.

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This is crazy, I had this installed just a month ago. It’s a new unit.

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I have the same problem as most people posting here: a hardwired Ring Doorbell 2 that worked fine for about 18 months before it stopped charging. I am anxious to know if the “domes of solder” are solving the problem or, in the alternative, whether the most recent firmware update simply drains the battery faster than it can recharge and that there’s nothing we can do about it.

Mine has been working fine for well over two years hardwired. New features pushed and now the bloody thing won’t keep a charge for more than two weeks. 18 good volts at the device. This problem is NOT fixed.

Either give us the fix or plan on some very harsh reviews.

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Again, no idea why on earth this is down as solved due to a couple of washers passing off as a solution. No offence to the fella that originally posted that as I am sure it helped a few people out but for Ring to take that as the resolution to this issue is a joke. I am in the same boat, got a solid connection, the app say’s my device is hardwired, even the little green battery icon is full and charging yet I am still having to remove my doorbell and charge it as the battery is discharging. Ring, can you please put your hands up to this and roll out a fix, I inhertied this doorbell from the previous occupier, it worked fine for the first two weeks, I can hear Google Nest calling me.

One of the replies in this topic talked about the internal power contacts in the doorbell on back plate not making good contact with the power contact pins on the circuit board.

Based on this reply, I disassembled the doorbell and looked at the connection between back plate pins and the power pins on the circuit board. I think that the connectivity between these can be bad whem the plastic back plate is a bit too flexible or the fixing screws in the back plate are not tightened enough.

During disassembly, I noticed that the fixing screws were tightened enough. So that was not my problem. I think that the this plastic backplate holding the power pins is not rigid enough to ensure good contact with the power pins on the circuit board.

You could test this by pressing with to fingers on front and back near the power contacts.

You could also place a thin rubber piece between the wall plate and the back plate, so that the backplate will be pressed in a little and make better contact with the power contacts on the circuit board.

I did not try this.

I placed a this layer of soldering tin on the power contacts on the base plate. After that my battery is charching again, the external chime works again and the app shows that I have a wired connection for my power. The light at the frnt of my doorbell is also on again.

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I followed your suggestion and the doorbell works fine again!!

To GerritVenema: Thanks so much for your photos. Extremely helpful. It’s beginning to look like the solder domes may indeed be the answer (at least for now). So sad that we’re having to figure this out for ourselves.

I called support this morning and was told by the agent that he believed it was a firmware problem and as yet there was no fix. I was told I would be added to “The List” and notified once there was a fix. Not sure if they just said that to placate me or if it is true since no Ring employee has confirmed that online from what I can see.

Well … is there going to be a firmware fix or not? How long does Ring expect us to wait for an answer? Why don’t they contact us to let us know what’s going on? They have our emails. This is very frustrating. Holding off on the “solder dome” fix for now - but am quickly losing patience!

I have this exact same problem. Bought my initial Ring Doorbell 2 January of 2019, everything worked great for a year. Beginning of 2020, all of a sudden my device wouldn’t stay charged any longer and died completely in March of 2020. After a few calls to support, it was deemed my device was defective and they sent me a new unit (Yay!).

Well, bad news. I installed the new unit 2 days ago and it’s already down to 95% with about 2-3 events a day (still not staying charged, brand new unit). I think someone has hit the nail on the head here with a Firmware update causing loss of power. I did not buy this product to have to pull the battery out every 2-3 months.

Do I need to just throw this product away and go with Google or is there indeed a fix? I’m not certain the wires/washers situation will fix this ordeal.

I’m having the same issue. As so many people have stated, my hardwired doorbell worked just fine. I never noticed a charge level below 100%. One day I noticed and performed the firmware update, and from that point on it would never register that it was hardwired, it would be battery only and would die and have to be removed to charge.

I contacted Ring and was shipped a new doorbell under warranty. It has the exact same problem.

Ring has basically broken all of our doorbells with a firmware update and they need to fix this.