Solar Charger for Video Doorbell 3 Plus

Hello! I just installed a new Solar Charger for a new Ring Video Doorbell 3 Plus. The Ring app seems to think that the solar charger isn’t connected. In Device Health it says Power Source is Battery. And the Solar Charger Status says for me to add a Ring solar device. Do I have a defective Solar Charger?

Hey @jaltone. We did push out an app update to fix the concern with the solar panel status showing that you needed to still add one, even when one is present. If you still see in your app that it says to install a solar panel, please ensure you have installed it properly by removing it from the setup and re-adding it. In the event you still may not see it showing up as connected under Device Health, please reach out to our support team. For this, please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19. This has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support.

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Thanks, I did notice the app update. Now it says Solar Status Connected. The battery charge has been slowly decreasing still each day. I have 3 of the new stick up battery cameras each powered by a solar panel. Do you have any plans to introduce a beefier solar panel for the doorbell? One with enough surface area to charge the doorbell with a net positive at the end of the day.

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@jaltone So glad you got that update and it is showing as connected now! How much do you see the decrease in percentage being each day? How many events (Live View, motion, dings, etc.) do you have a day? Knowing this can help us isolate further what may be happening with the Doorbell and the discharge. Thank you also for your feedback on the solar panel, I will make sure to pass on your feedback to the appropriate teams. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for getting back with me on this. So I’ve set the doorbell as 5 to 15 feet from the street (to reduce motion detection), reduced the motion zones to just the bottom one (see attached photos). I’ve left the doorbell motion sensitivity and frequency to the defaults (see attached photos). I set snapshot capture at every 1 hour. Yesterday there were no recordings and the charge stayed at 90% the last 24 hours. The other day I had HVAC people doing maintenance, and there were about 8 motion recordings (including 1 doorbell press recording) that made the charge drop by about 3%. So at best the charge stays the same, and at worst the charge drops 3% within a 24-hour period. So in the medium run (in several weeks I’m guessing) eventually the battery will have to be replaced with a fully charged one. Contrast this to my solar powered stick up battery cameras that always drop to 98% overnight, but then are back to 100% from about an hour of direct sunlight. (I attached a photo of the front door with a stick up camera above-left to the doorbell in my previous reply.) And this is with the stick up battery cameras’ sensitivity set to around 70%, and the street facing cameras (2 of them linked together, the other one is at the garage door) averaging 8 recordings every day. These stick up cameras are set for snapshot capture every 3 minutes as well. All of this totally makes sense to me as the stick up cameras’ solar panel surface area is relatively big to that of the doorbell’s. Does this make sense to you?

@jaltone Thank you so much for the detailed reply and giving me as much information as possible so I can understand your situation. It all makes sense to me and I agree that especially in your situation, a bigger solar panel for your Doorbell, similar to the Stick Up Cams, could be very useful to capture more light and energy to help supply that power more consistently to your Doorbell like the Stick Up Cams. I will say too, the solar charger for your Doorbell probably isnt’ doing as much as it could, as the brick wall on the left side of the Doorbell may be affecting sunlight from hitting the panels on that side. In all, a bigger surface area of the solar panels that the light does hit would be useful. This is great to take into consideration for future devices, so I will make sure your feedback and this situation is heard! :slight_smile:

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@Chelsea_Ring

I have installed and uninstalled the solar charger. I have trimmed the trees around my porch to make sure it is getting enough sun light. The charger is still no being recognized and my battery is below 90%. I keep seeing about an update what do i do?

This is driving me crazy

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Hi @kammij01. For further assistance here, please give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19. This has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support. Feel free to come back and let me know how this goes! :slight_smile: