Fixing Ring Doorbell Problems

When seeking to improve your home, placing a smart doorbell at your front door might look like you’re in a sci-fi movie, which is a good thing. Replacing your doorbell with a smart model allows you to see who’s directly outside via your smartphone. If there’s some activity, your smart doorbell will record it and inform you about it.

One of the most popular such devices comes from Ring, an Amazon brand. Their Ring Video Doorbell Pro provides a lot of various features that can make your life easier. But unfortunately, there are times when the doorbell just won’t work properly.

The Doorbell Keeps Disconnecting from Your Wi-Fi Network

Before you read the rest of the article, please make sure your Wi-Fi network is set to 2.4 GHz and that it uses a channel in the range of 1 to 11. You can access these settings using your router’s control panel. If you’re not sure how to access it, please refer to the router’s user manual.

One of the most common reasons why your Ring Video Doorbell simply won’t work is the Wi-Fi. Although the doorbell is practically powered and turned on, it may disconnect from your Wi-Fi network and remain in that status until you fix the issue.

If that is the case, when you push the ring button on the device, you’ll be able to hear a ringing sound. But when you check your smartphone, you’ll see that there weren’t any notifications coming through about the event. Additionally, when you open the Ring app on your phone, there won’t be any entries in the events list regarding that particular ringing event.

Often, this occurs due to a temporary loss of power in your home. A random power surge could also affect your router to break the connection. The easiest solution to this problem is to restart the Wi-Fi router, the one the Ring doorbell is connected to. Once the router boots up again, your doorbell should reconnect without any issues.

Another reason could be that a wire came loose on your router, like a network cable, for example. To make sure this isn’t the case, simply check if all the wires and cables are properly connected to the router. Also, if you’ve changed your Wi-Fi network parameters like name or password, you’ll have to update this information in your Ring app.

The Wi-Fi Signal Is of Poor Quality

Sometimes, you may experience issues with your Ring Video Doorbell even when it’s connected to Wi-Fi. In most cases, this comes down to the poor quality of the Wi-Fi signal. You’ll know if this is the cause of your problems if you’re getting the following symptoms:

• Poor quality of the video feed coming from the doorbell camera to the Ring app.
• Delayed notifications between the ring event and the moment they appear on your smartphone.
• In some cases, a notification might never appear in your app, even when the doorbell is connected to your Wi-Fi.
• When you open the Live View feature in the Ring app, it can’t connect to the doorbell’s video feed. Occasionally, the Live View might connect in the end, but if it took more than a few seconds to do so, then it’s almost certain you’re having issues with your Wi-Fi signal.
• This can also happen to both the ring and motion-detection events. Even when the Ring app recognizes your doorbell as online, these events simply won’t connect.

Since there are many factors which can affect the quality of the Wi-Fi signal in your home, you’ll have to check each of them until you find the cause of the issue. First of all, check if there are any physical obstacles between your router and the doorbell. These can include the following:

• Thick walls or floors, especially if they’re made of brick, concrete, or have metal reinforcements inside.
• Various objects in your home, like large mirrors, bookshelves, fish tanks, thick doors, etc.
• Low emission windows are also known to negatively affect the signal quality.

If so, try moving the router to a better position. If that’s not possible, then you’ll have to buy a signal repeater to boost its strength.

Another reason could be an overwhelming number of other Wi-Fi networks in the vicinity. This is a common issue for apartment and office buildings. Fortunately, there are specific router settings that can help you get the least crowded channel and use it for your network. Please consult the router manual to find out how to do this.

Finally, certain electronic devices can cause the interference in your network. To eliminate the suspects, disconnect the ones you see as potential culprits. Then, check the quality of the connection. If it’s better now, then it’s definitely one of the devices causing the problem.

Now start connecting the devices, one by one, checking the Wi-Fi quality after each device you connect. This will help you find the device responsible for the issue. It’s worth pointing out that it’s not always a single device that’s causing the problem, rather the interaction of two separate devices which leads to the poor signal quality.

The Doorbell Doesn’t Receive Enough Power

Another thing that could affect the performance of your Ring Video Doorbell, especially the Pro model, is having insufficient amount of power. The symptoms usually include:

• Your doorbell is working normally for a couple of events, but then it shuts down.
• The doorbell regularly disconnects from your Wi-Fi network.
• The white light on the front of the doorbell regularly shuts down, indicating the doorbell doesn’t have any power.
• When watching the live video from the doorbell on your smartphone, the feed will freeze.
• It fails to properly ring your existing doorbell or chime.
• The night vision feature doesn’t work.

All of the above points in the direction of faulty wiring. But before you start playing with the wires, use the Ring app to check if there are any power issues with your doorbell.

• Start the Ring app on your smartphone.
• Tap the options menu. It’s the three lines icon in the top left corner.
• Now tap “Devices.”
• Tap your Ring Video Doorbell Pro from the device list.
• Finally, tap “Device Health.”

Now check the value next to the “Voltage” entry. For the doorbell to work properly the voltage should be “Good.” To see the exact amount in mV, tap “Good.” The lowest value to guarantee the optimal operation is 3900 mV.

If the voltage is anything below “Good” then it’s definitely an issue with insufficient voltage. For anyone who connected the Ring Video Doorbell Pro to their existing doorbell wiring, it’s possible the wires can’t supply enough power anymore.

To solve this, simply bypass the old wires using Ring’s Pro Power Kit V2 – and that’s it. If you prefer to keep using the old doorbell wiring, then you’ll need a new power transformer for your video doorbell. The transformer should have the following specs:

• At least 16 V AC
• At least 30 VA, but no more than 40 VA.
• 50/60 Hz

If none of this works for you, or you don’t have existing wiring for your doorbell, then simply use the Ring’s Plug-in Adapter. By plugging it into a wall power outlet and connecting to your Ring Video Doorbell Pro, you’ll finally resolve any power issues you might have.