NEW alternatives: There are now two great alternatives to the Ring Floodlight Cam: (1) The Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Pro (which adds 802.11ac 5-GHz Wi-Fi support), or (2) the new Ring Stick up Cam Elite which has PoE (Power over Ethernet), allowing you to ditch Wi-Fi altogether! So, keep your existing motion floodlight and just add this new Stick Up Cam, rather than using the Ring Floodlight cam. That way Internet to the cam is via (ultra-reliable) WIRED Ethernet and you can avoid ALL WiFi problems. Every Ring cam that I have installed since has been a Ring Stick Up Cam, Elite version, using PoE and Ethernet (so, NO wireless issues to worry about). And if you need light at the cam location, just add a good old fashioned motion-based floodlight. Of course, all of this will only work if you can run Ethernet (from a PoE switch plugged into your main router) to your cam location.

Ring Floodlight Cam

Videos are uploaded to the 'cloud' LIVE via your internet connection and saved for 60 days (with a subscription plan).

On May 25, I noticed that I could no longer view recorded/cloud videos from all Cams. The 30-day trial for cloud video recording stopped working. The response from Ring was: "we have just been informed there is an issue with the recordings where some are recording and some aren't registering. However our engineers are working on the situation as we speak". As I was doing extensive testing, I could not wait -- I got off the trial and signed up (paying) for cloud recording (which fixed the problem). Not a good impression.

Ring Product Box promises "1080p HD Video"

I've installed true high end 1080p security systems before. I know what video quality to expect from a "1080p" system.

650×440 crop from Ring video - notice bad blocking/ghosting - NOT 1080p HD quality

The gritty details: One 63 second MP4 from the Cam was 6.3 MB (or 868 kbps). The 480p YouTube video above uses 770 kbps. Now set the YouTube video to 1080p HD quality. The video now looks fantastic, but it also dramatically increases bandwidth to 2358 kbps (3 times more bandwidth)!

Just think about it. If what Ring claimed were actually true -- "1080p HD Video" in under 1 Mbps -- that blows away what Netflix or YouTube can do by a LOT. But we know that Ring videos use H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, which is a well known industry standard -- So, no, not true.

How YOU can calculate Ring MP4 bitrates: Download a Ring video, multiply the file size (in bytes) by 8 and divide that by the number of seconds in the video to obtain 'bps'. Divide the answer by 1000 to get 'kbps'. Or divide the answer by 1000000 by get 'mbps'. Note that this results in a combined audio+video bitrate.

Click to zoom in -- Ring Floodlight Cam 868 kbps quality -- notice significant 'blocking'

UPDATE: It turns out RING WAS WRONG. My cam RSSI was just fine. It turns out that Ring simply had set a bitrate for my cam that was WAY too low. Also, later (see below) Ring now claims that a RSSI around -60 is fine.

UPDATE: Ring is not always available for chat anymore. Instead, questions are submitted in writing and Ring responds in writing.

But a RSSI of -44 dBm means Ring requires a signal strength of 100% (5 out of 5 bars), which quite frankly, is not realistic! To actually obtain -44 dBm, I needed to be within 10 feet line-of-sight (no walls) to my Netgear R6250 access point.

[Source: "Netgear WiFi Analytics" app; a great tool in this regard; see table right generated from this tool; also this resource]

Ring sent me a "Chime Pro" (a wifi extender) for free, but when I tried to set it up, all I got was a cryptic "Setup didn't complete" error message. Even Ring tech support could not get the Chime Pro set up and working!

My prior RSSI was -66 and the Ring Floodlight cam was communicating with the wireless network just fine. It was just that the video quality was really poor. After I installed an access point 2 feet from the CAM, RSSI is now great, but the video quality from the Cam remains unchanged.

UPDATE 2018/01/11: I just confirmed (via Ring chat) that Ring support still can set the Cams to auto/720p/1080p.

Click to zoom in -- Ring Floodlight Cam 1,118 kbps quality

Click to zoom in -- Ring Floodlight Cam 1,798 kbps quality

THIS is the video quality that I should be getting ALL of the time. My internet upload speed at the time was 3000 kbps. I upgraded it to 6000 kbps, but that made NO difference.

New Feature: Ring should allow the upload bitrate of a Cam to be set by the end user. In many situations, a bitrate of around 2.5 Mbps would work great and result in really good video quality. But there ARE situations (lots of motion through frame) where a bitrate closer to 4 Mbps is required.

My Test Procedure: (1) Make sure no one else is using the Internet. (2) Run a speed test. (3) Cause the Ring Cam to capture a video. (4) Run another speed test. In all cases, both speed tests results are great (show 6 Mbps upload speeds), but the Ring Cam video is poor quality. I have even gone so far as to monitor the bytes transferred statistics in my router -- which verifies nothing else (besides the Ring Cam) is using the Internet.

Wider channels: 802.11ac in 5 GHz supports 80 MHz channels, or 433 Mbps. Whereas 802.11n in 2.4 GHz only supports 72 Mbps. What this means is that a poor 802.11ac wifi signal would blow away (have much more usable bandwidth) than a perfect 100% 802.11n wifi signal. [source]

It was a mistake for Ring to focus entirely on RSSI 'signal strength'. Because in the end, what really matters is 'actual usable bandwidth', not signal strength.

As proof, take the time to understand the graphic below/right -- where a laptop 3× further away from the SAME wireless AP the Ring cam is using, but using 802.11ac, has a MUCH higher bandwidth than a Ring cam much closer to the router (and the laptop has a worse RSSI than the Ring cam)!

5 GHz has much better speeds

MIMO: And range is only half the story. The other half of the story is actual usable bandwidth. Because MIMO and channel bonding is very common in the 5 GHz band, actual usable bandwidth in 5 GHz with MIMO (and low signal strength) can be MUCH better than 2.4 without MIMO (and high signal strength). My laptop at 30 feet connects to my Netgear R6250 at over 500 Mbps with a RSSI of -60 (88% signal strength) and works great -- at over 500 Mbps!

Beamforming: This 5G technology increases wifi range.

5 GHz capacity: In the US, 2.4 GHz has only 3 non-overlapping 20Mhz channels whereas 5 GHz has 25 non-overlapping 20Mhz channels (see full details far below)! The 2.4 GHz band is quite simply way too crowded. [source]

2.4 GHz range is a HUGE disadvantage if you live close to neighbors: There are just too many devices using 2.4 GHz, and with close neighbors (condos and townhomes), increased range is actually a huge disadvantage, because you see all of your neighbors wifi devices -- and you all must SHARE the same 2.4 GHz band! At one summer vacation townhouse, I see 30 wifi radios/BSSID in the 2.4 GHz band. It does not matter if 2.4 GHz has increased range, because in the middle of summer, the 2.4 band is so crazy busy, you can't get bandwidth to actually transmit a MP4 wirelessly to your router (and then to the cloud) fast enough.

2.4 GHz is plagued by non-wifi interference: And worse of all, 2.4 GHz is is plagued by non-wifi interference. Just using a microwave can kill the 2.4 GHz wireless band. The first time you use a microwave and you kill access to your Ring cam, you will not want to use another 2.4 GHz wireless security camera! In one house this happens to me, but in another house it does not.

How I tested this: I disconnected the wireless AP from the Internet (so Floodlight cam was still connected to wireless AP, but not to the Internet), walked in front of the Ring Floodlight Cam, reconnected the AP to the Internet, and there was NO video recorded in the cloud. This is simply not acceptable for any true 'security' device. It is so easy to implement simple buffering of the video (store with no Internet and transmit once Internet comes back up), that this decision (to drop videos) shows that this Cam is NOT (currently) a true security camera.

The Ring Floodlight Cam IS a great 'tool', but it is NOT a 'security' camera -- because it can easily miss and not record security incidents.

Ring cams must buffer video when the internet is down.

I was told by a Ring executive that Ring would like to do this at some point in the future. Ring must make this a priority -- since a true 'security' camera must ALWAYS (eventually) record a security event, period.

This 'manual power reset' is totally unacceptable for a security camera, and I think this demonstrates that Ring rushed the Floodlight Cam out the door -- with critical bugs. When I contacted Ring support, they replied: "Our latest firmware update 1.6.71 was actually a hotfix to improve the algorithm for reconnecting Floodlight Cameras that are offline." -- so Ring KNEW that there is an 'offline' problem with the Floodlight Cam!

UPDATE 2017/08/16: The same thing happened to another one of my Ring Floodlight cams. The cam 'locked up' for days and would not recover on its own until it was hard power reset.

UPDATE 2018/03/29: I did not notice this problem for months, so I assumed that Ring finally fixed this bug. However, a few days ago, I received an email from someone stating their cam was 'hung' and today, one of my cams 'hung' again! THIS BUG IS NOT YET FIXED!

• Ring Recordings Failure

  NEW 2019/09/12: "Delay In Ring Video Recording" Today, Ring is having major problems. 'Recorded' videos are 'not there' (seen right). This is affecting ALL of my cams. Over the years, this has happened WAY TOO MANY TIMES. And every time that it does happen, the videos NEVER show up (gone forever) for my cams. Quite simple, the 'uptime' of Ring recording videos from cams is NOT what it should be.

  Ring runs on top of AWS (Amazon Web Services), and Ring (the company) is now owned by Amazon. It is way past time for Amazon to step in and fix this problem!
  
  UPDATE 2019/09/16: It looks like all prior unavailable videos have now all been processed. This is a very pleasant surprise (because in the past when this has happened, my videos were 'lost' and never got processed).

• NEW 2019/06/11: cam setup problems: On many many occasions, while setting up a new cam, the Ring app would blindly report that setup failed (without providing a reason)! So I just retry and it (usually) works. But today, setup failed over and over and over (for over three hours). I must have tried 30 times to set up the cam. Most frustrating is that I could go into my router log file and see that that cam had successfully connected (obtained an ip address) via wifi to the router a few times! From prior discussions with Ring tech support, there is no local handshake (between cam and phone app) to confirm that the cam properly setup. Instead, the cam attempts to connect to Ring servers (and so does the app), and that is how a successful setup is detected.

  It is very VERY clear that Ring still has a very significant wifi setup bug. Given the number of years that Ring has been in business, this is totally unacceptable. Rather than a generic 'setup failed' error message, Ring MUST provide DETAILED and accurate error messages on failure. This setup took place in a very congested wifi space (lots of SSID's visible). I suspect that this bug is related in some way to that fact.

• NEW 2018/10/07: DHCP network flood: I just noticed that some of my floodlight cams were flooding the network with DHCP "get ip address" requests -- once every second instead of once every 12 hours (or so). Nothing in the network had changed (except for possibly firmware on the ring cam).

  Bug found: A WireShark PCAP reveals the bug is inside the Ring cam. The cam sends out a DHCP "get ip address" request, gets a DHCP ip address response, but then immediately responds with an ICMP "port unreachable" error message (that UDP port 68 on the cam is not reachable). A clear firmware bug.
  
  UPDATE 2019/01/14: I am still seeing some cams make a lot more DHCP requests than they should (but not as often as a second). There is still some bug here to fix! Again, rebooting the Ring cam solves the problem (for a while).
  
  UPDATE 2019/10/16: I just noticed a very similar problem with a Stick Up Cam Elite. The cam was asking for an ip address once every 15 seconds.
  
  TIP: If you run into this problem, fix it by power cycling your cam.

• NEW 2018/08/28: Nothing recorded for a week: I just noticed that one of my Ring Floodlight cams at a remote location recorded NOTHING over the last week. And going to live view resulted in only a black screen (and black recorded videos). Strangely, 'device health' in the app still functioned and said everything was OK.

  Since 'device health' was operating, I chatted with Ring and got them to remote reboot the cam, which resolved the problem. Ring must (1) add a remote reboot ability to the app (so I can reboot the cam without contacting chat) and (2) implement a watchdog timeout that looks for no recorded videos over a period of time (like 24 hours), and automatically reboots the cam on timeout.

• NEW 2018/08/22: Pauses in every video: All recorded videos have a 'pause' of several seconds at the beginning of the video (around seconds 2 to 5) -- this affects ALL my Ring Floodlight and Elite cams at ALL locations around the country. This bug is somehow related to sound, as the problem videos also had no sound at the start of the problem videos as well (sound kicked in around 5 to 9 second mark).

  UPDATE 2018/08/27: Today it appears that all cams are once again working properly. Ring must have had an issue.
  
  UPDATE 2018/08/28: Ring acknowledged that a 'security issue' was blocking the start of videos, which was resolved.

• NEW 2018/06/21: The lights on the Floodlight cam do NOT come on! With ambient light at night, the cam thinks nighttime is daytime: The lights on the Ring Floodlight cam do NOT come on with motion/recordings. The problem appears to be (update: confirmed) that the light sensor on the front of the Floodlight cam (seen below right) is tricked by the ambient light in the scene into thinking it is 'daytime', when in fact, it is clearly nighttime. If the IR LED's on the front of your Floodlight cam are OFF at night (very visible red dots), you have replicated this problem! As a result, on motion/recordings, the lights on the Ring Floodlight cam will NOT come on. UPDATE: A fix is to glue a tiny 'L' bracket over the light sensor -- that blocks direct (bright) light, but still allows ambient light to hit the sensor. Here is an example of the Ring Floodlight cam thinking it is daytime:
  
  
  Click to zoom in -- Ring Floodlight cam thinks this is 'daytime'
  
• NEW 2018/09/09: Repeated Ring Elite cam sound problem: My Ring Elite cam has now on numerous occasions totally lost sound recording ability. In the middle of a video, sound drops out, and on all subsequent videos, there is NO sound. The cam does NOT recover on its own. The only fix is to reboot the cam.

  UPDATE: I have not noticed this problem in quite a while. Hopefully this means that Ring has identified and fixed this bug?

• UPDATE 2018/01/02: The lights on my Floodlight Cam 'strobe' in very cold weather: I suspect that in some (early?) revisions of the Ring Floodlight Cam, the lights on the Cam 'strobe' (or flash/pulse) in very cold weather (like 9°F), even though the Cam is technically rated for -22°F to 120°F. This first time this happened, chat support asked me to power reset the Cam. After multiple resets, the issue want away, but I now believe that was just a coincidence due to warming temperatures at the time. The next day, just as temperatures went down again to 9°F, the Cam started strobing, again. Chat support now blamed 'low voltage' (it measured normal/fine), even though the Cam is rated to work at 100-240V. A Google search reveals that other people are seeing this 'strobing' problem (a YouTube video), so this sure seems like a hardware component problem with the Cam (relay that turns lights on)?

  UPDATE 2018/01/05: This appears to be almost certainly a temperature issue with the Cam. This morning, as temperatures dropped again to 10°F, the problem came back, and more importantly, went away as temperatures warmed up!

  This behavior was replicated again due to cold temperatures on 2018/01/06 and on 2018/01/07 -- and was not replicated on 2018/01/08 when temperatures were not cold enough. For me, this verifies a temperature problem.

  At the problem location, I also have a brand new (later revision) Floodlight cam (on the same wiring) that does NOT have the strobing problem in cold temps. My guess is that Ring knows about this issue and has fixed it in later revisions of the floodlight (or that a component supplier briefly supplied a bad component)?

  Ring Floodlight Cam fails to capture car leaving driveway

• The Ring Floodlight Cam OFTEN fails to record motion! At one house, the Cam overlooks a driveway (with motion triggering on virtually the entire visible frame). I see the Cam record two people walking and getting into the car (right). The 63 second video ends, and there are NO other recorded videos -- even though the car then leaves, the Cam fails to capture the car leaving! I then go into a 'live view' and the car is gone!

  UPDATE: This bug now actually happens very frequently, after Ring changed the default recording time from 60 seconds to 30 seconds. I often see a video of people approaching a car in the driveway (to leave), but then there is often NO video of the car actually leaving the driveway.
  
  UPDATE: This bug now happens less frequently after Ring changed the 30 second videos back to 60 second videos.

• Some 'security' incidents are simply NOT recorded at all: As a test, I turned on motion alerts on my driveway / front door Floodlight Cam and ordered Pizza. The Ring app on my phone never alerted me when the pizza was delivered to my front door and there was NO VIDEO RECORDING OF THE PIZZA DELIVERY IN THE RING CLOUD! Strangely, the Cam did record the delivery guy leaving.

  UPDATE: This still happens once in a while. I suspect the ring cam is 'hung up' and clears itself later. There is still room for improvement here.

• Two way talk did not work at all: This feature not working is not something that I care about that much (if there is a security incident, I want the videos to go back to), but when I did test it out over several days, it did not work. Voice from app to Cam worked, but there was no voice from Cam to app (same result at all locations and tested on multiple phones).

  UPDATE: This now appears to be fixed -- so this was clearly a bug (software problem) that Ring fixed (and not a hardware problem).

• Sound in videos is VERY problematic: Sometimes there is NO sound at all for an entire 63 second video. Other times, the first few (4-5) seconds of the video has no sound. I can find no video with sound in the first couple of seconds of the video.

  UPDATE 2018/01/04: The first several (4) seconds of videos never have sound for me. And then after that, you do get sound, but the sound is NOT synchronized to the video -- it is 'time shifted'. Ring needs to make this a priority to fix. There is no reason that audio+video can not be perfectly synchronized.
  
  UPDATE 2018/03/07: I noticed that most of my cams now have sound starting immediately. It appears Ring is pushing updates out that fix this issue.

• Inability to set house address: During install, the app auto-detects your house address. It is impossible to change this auto-detected address. The app provides a way to set/change the address, but it does not work AT ALL (not during install, nor after the fact).

  UPDATE: This bug appears to be fixed.

  Ring Floodlight Cam fails to record videos to the cloud

• Cloud Recording Failure: All of a sudden, 47 days after signing up for cloud video recording (and 7 days after charging my credit card for service for 30 days), on July 11, 2017, cloud video recording for all three cams FAILED (see right). And worst of all is that Ring's status.ring.com did NOT show any problems -- which indicates that Ring's 'status' website is not accurate. This problem went away one day later.

  UPDATE: I have not seen this happen since.

• Blank videos V1: There are Floodlight Cam videos recorded in the cloud that are 100% black (strangely, for exactly 40 seconds). Why? What failed? Ring technical support told me to just be patient and that the videos would eventually appear. I checked a week later and the videos are still black. I then checked back 38 days later and the videos are still black!

  UPDATE: This still happens one in a great while, but a LOT less frequently.

• Blank videos V2: There are videos recorded in the cloud that are 100% white. There is sound, but NO video.

  UPDATE: I have NOT seen a repeat of this issue, so I assume Ring fixed this bug.

• Blank videos V3: There are Floodlight Cam videos recorded in the cloud that have 25 seconds of no motion. I can see a person walking, and then that person freezes in mid stride for 25 seconds (the MP4 progress bar continues to advance), and then after 25 seconds, the person instantly vanishes. Why?

  UPDATE: I have NOT seen a repeat of this issue, so I assume Ring fixed this bug.

• Live view has issues: Multiple times "live view" failed (app complained that it could not connect to the Cam), only to later find that the 'live' video was recorded and exists in the cloud.

  UPDATE: Live view now almost always works right away, but once in a while there are still problems.
  
  Clearly behind the scenes Ring must know WHERE the problem is. Be much more customer friendly and disclose to the end user what went wrong. I would rather see an accurate error message rather than a blank black screen.

  Ring Floodlight Cam Favorites Failure

• 'Favorites via web browser do not work -- at all: The Ring interface has the ability to mark videos as a 'favorite'. One day I selected favorites and saw them all. The next day, I clicked on favorites and not a single video showed up! Ring instead displayed a "You don't have any favorites. To add a favorite click the star icon next to an event." This bug was with the web interface, not the phone app.

  UPDATE: This is still a bug and is NOT FIXED. It looks like in the web interface, the 'filters' only get applied to the events that are in the 'downloaded' event list on the screen -- a huge design flaw. Because the list on the screen typically only displays a day (or hours) of event activity. So any event from yesterday, or before, is NOT found.

  Ring Web Interface is not formatted properly

• Web Interface formatting: There are major formatting (too much white space; video too small) problems in the web interface used to review captured videos. To the right is an example of what I see in my web browser on a Dell notebook PC with a 1920×1080 display.

  UPDATE: This is long-standing bug that is still NOT FIXED.
  
  UPDATE: Ring changed the web interface, but the revised version is now MUCH WORSE. I can't scroll through the list of motion events because of some scrolling bug. When I click on the list of my devices, the list goes off the bottom of the screen, so I can only select half of my devices. And there is still tons of unused white space. Ring's graphical user interface designer should be fired.

• Power outage problem: After a power outage, the lights turn on and STAY on. You must MANUALLY turn off the lights via the Ring app. Very annoying! Apparently this is a 'feature' for people who want to hook up the cam to a real light switch (turning the lights and recording on/off at will) -- but this ignores the most common use of the cam (a 'security' product that is ALWAYS ON).

  Honestly, how many people buy an expensive 'security' Cam just so they can turn the lights on the cam on and off with a light switch? Ring needs to make this a configurable setting in the app (after a power failure, turn lights on: yes/no).
  
  UPDATE 2018/09/12: Just noticed that this appears fixed. After a power outage, the lights on the cam come on for a few minutes, and then turn off.

• Motion Zones are NOT accurate: Configure motion zones on a phone with a 2220×1080 screen and then review the zones on a phone with a 2560×1440 screen -- and the motion zones have MOVED. Because the zones 'move' depending upon the aspect ratio of the phone screen being used, who knows what motion zones the Ring Cam actually uses! Below is the SAME motion zone on two different phones. So is the motion zone (that the Cam uses) to the edge of the video frame or past the edge of the video frame -- who knows?

  

  UPDATE 2018/06/25: I just noticed that this issue appears fixed. Not sure when the fix was implemented, or how accurate the fix is.

• The Ring cams require a GREAT Wifi signal: The cams don't work at a distance that my notebook computer still works great. The Ring cams apparently require a GREAT Wifi signal (70% signal strength or better) in order to work properly.

  Ring should consider adding wired ethernet to all of its 'wired' (plugged into electricity) devices. Second best would be to add 5 GHz support to ALL cams.

• Zoom: You can 'zoom' into 'live view' video on the phone app, but if you playback any previously captured video, you can NOT zoom in. Annoying.

  UPDATE 2018/01/22: I noticed today that I can now zoom into video playback!

• No 5GHz Wi-Fi DFS channel support: UPDATE 2019/01/18: I just noticed that my Ring Doorbell Pro cam has problems connecting to my router when the router uses DFS channels (A router is fully permitted to use DFS channels when the router detects that the frequency is open and available). I was shocked when Ring responded with "Our devices aren't compatible with DFS frequencies." Surprised, I chatted with Ring a second time and the response was: "We do not support DFS channels at this time." That means that Ring does not support 67% of the available 5GHz Wi-Fi channels (channel list), and if your router uses one of those channels, the Ring cam will NOT connect to it!

  It is interesting to note that the 'tech specs' for the Ring cams state: "802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connection @ 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz". But upon closer inspection, notice that support for 802.11ac is NOT listed. Most people when they see that "5Ghz" wifi is supported will naturally think of the standard 5GHz wifi (802.11ac) -- but that is NOT the case! Buyer beware.

• Ring app thinks PoE/Ethernet is wireless

  Bugs repeatedly reported for YEARS are not fixed: I installed a Ring Elite cam in 2017 and ran into a bug in the app -- Under "Device Health", the app reports that the cam is connected via "Ring-Wireless" wifi (with an impossibly bad RSSI -256 signal strength), but the cam is really connected via PoE/Ethernet (seen right). I REPEATEDLY reported this bug to Ring (chat, the CTO, the COO, and others) over the years (2017, 2018, 2019). But as of August 2019, the bug still remains. And worse yet, this bug now happens for Ring's newest Stick Up Cam Elite.
  
  
• Sometimes "1080p Video" is only 720p, 480p, or even 360p! Bizarrely, some of my cams that have been producing 1920x1080 videos for years, have recently started to produce 720p, 480p and even 360p videos! I can fully understand a transient network issue causing this, but Ring must 'adapt back to normal' much faster!

  Don't get me wrong. If the cam must use a lower bitrate, the image quality at high resolution is horrible. So, dropping resolution (720p, 480p, etc) is a good thing because that results in a much better end result. The problem I have is that Ring cams don't adjust back to normal 1080p fast enough.

• Floodlight Cam hardware component (sound) failure: Several of my floodlight cams have all failed with the exact SAME problem -- no more sound in recorded videos. And because this has happened to multiple Floodlight cams, not just one, that tells me that Ring likely has the same hardware component failing in all cams -- namely, a defective hardware component (microphone/amp/???).
  
  
• Ring MUST STOP the 'blame game': Read this entire paper and something stands out. Ring chat/support always blames something other than their camera for problems (almost always blaming poor wifi signal strength). But in reality, the Ring cam (firmware) or app (software) has almost always been to blame.

  I have even had Ring tech support blame wifi for problems -- for a cam using PoE / Ethernet. Yes, you read that correctly. I had Ring tech support blame my wifi for a problem, for a Ring cam that was NOT even using wifi (it was using PoE/Ethernet).

• The missing ethernet jack: Quite simply, the Ring Floodlight Cam is missing an ethernet jack. Tech support would not listen to my 'video quality' concerns until the RSSI on my Cam was at least -44 (or better). The only way I could obtain this RSSI was to install a wireless access point right next to (just feet away) the Cam. Which meant I had to run ethernet cable to the Cam. So I now have the Cam outside, and a wireless AP inside, less than two foot away from the Cam. That is crazy. Just provide an ethernet jack on the Floodlight Cam at that point!

  And then any cam providing an ethernet jack should also support PoE (if possible, given power requirements)!
  
  It turns out that Ring IS coming out with a new stick up cam in mid October 2018 that can be powered over ethernet!

• Speed Test Problems: The Ring phone app sends people to bandwidthplace.com to test Internet connection speeds. But something is very wrong with that site -- as the site reported I had a download speed of 3 Mbps, whereas two other speed test sites reported a correct 120 Mbps.

  I was told by Ring that bandwidthplace.com is known to be inaccurate, but Ring is still using that site. I personally use speedtest.xfinity.com because Comcast has tons of bandwidth (they are the biggest broadband company in the US), and their speed test has always (so far) provide me with accurate speed test results, even on mobile devices.

• Pulsing in Videos: When Floodlight Cam videos are played back on a large (non-phone) screen, there is a very noticeable 'pulsing/stutter' in the video every second. This may be a real issue, or just related to the incredibly low MP4 video stream bitrate?

  As of Jan 2018, the 'pulsing' in videos is still there, but is not as noticeable with a 2 Mbps MP4 bitrate. Ring needs to find out why this is happening -- there should be NO noticeable periodic 'pulsing' in videos, which indicates an algorithm error.

• Firmware upgrade: The steps Ring publishes to upgrade the firmware in the Cam don't work. Why not simply add a button into the app to do this? Also, there should be a button in the app to 'reboot' the Cam.

  Sadly Ring has removed Firmware version information from the app -- and now only just displays "Up to Date" for the Firmware version.

• Time gaps: There is some strange maximum video length of 63 seconds, and motion immediately after that may not trigger a recording to the cloud. With motion events longer than 63 seconds, I see a 63 second video recorded, then nothing (no other video). OR, I see a 63 second video, and then another video that starts many seconds later (a time gap).

  2017/07/07 UPDATE: The Ring Floodlight Cam appears to have switched to a maximum video length of around 31 seconds, which now makes this issue even more pronounced. I now see a lot more missing time gaps between videos.
  
  UPDATE: At some point in later 2017, Ring switched back to 60 second videos.

  It is bizarre that Ring cuts off videos at 63 seconds when it clearly knows there is still 'motion' in the video. Rather than creating a second 63 second video (with a several second gap between the videos), just keep the first video going!

• Ignoring 5 GHz: Ring (tech support, their app, etc) does not understand the 5 GHz wifi exists and is very common. Support will ask you to run tests against your wireless router, but then they don't check (verify) to see if you are actually connected at 2.4 GHz (most devices, when faced with a dual band router, prefer to connect at 5 GHz instead of 2.4 GHz). So when Ring asks you to test speeds, you may be testing 5 GHz speeds, not 2.4 GHz speeds, and not even know it!

  Apparently the (1) Ring Video Doorbell Pro, (2) Ring Video Doorbell Elite, and (3) Ring Stick Up Cam Wired (renamed Elite) are (currently) the only Ring devices that DO support 5 GHz (albeit 802.11n in 5 GHz, not 802.11ac). I have not yet tested these devices on 5G. UPDATE 2018/03/28: I have just tested the Ring Doorbell Pro on 5 GHz and it appears to work very well (wifi speed between router and cam is very fast).
  
  All Ring devices must support 5GHz. I don't know if it is true (if it would translate to Ring devices), but everyone claims that at least on phones, 5 GHz is MUCH more power/battery efficient than 2.4 GHz.

• MIMO: When I asked tech support if the Floodlight Cam supported MIMO (and if so, should I buy a MIMO wireless AP), the answer was 'that is proprietary and internal information we can not disclose'. That attitude hurts Ring customers. Because if the Ring cams do actually support MIMO, that helps in deciding which MIMO (or not) access point to purchase.

  UPDATE: I now have reason to believe that the Floodlight cam DOES use 2x2 MIMO. Meaning that a quality AP can make a difference.
  
  In a chat in Dec 2017, Ring admitted that Ring Cams DO NOT support MIMO! But I don't know if that is true, because sometimes, tech support that I have received via chat has been horribly wrong. Regardless, MIMO is very important because it is a direct bandwidth multiplier (and consequently, it also cuts transmit time 50%, 66%, or even 75%). I hope that when Ring designs 'version two' of their products, that they include 5 GHz support in everything, with full MIMO support.

• Mbps: Floodlight Cam product documentation inside the product box states "For an optimal experience, we recommend Internet speeds of at least 1Mbps", but the Ring website in the 'Floodlight Cam FAQ' states "For best streaming performance, we recommend 2 Mbps upload and download speeds". And yet with a verified 6Mbps up internet connection, the Ring Floodlight Cam refuses to use more than 1Mbps, resulting in horrible video quality. Something is going on here that Ring must fix ASAP...

  UPDATE 2018/11/01: I now see some of my cams regularly using 3.0 Mbps for video, which is GREAT for video quality. And nothing has changed in my Internet or network, which clearly demonstrates just how much Ring cam firmware is solely responsible for video quality issues.
  
  UPDATE 2018/04/02: I now see some of my cams using 2.5 Mbps, which again dramatically improves video quality.
  
  UPDATE: Ring has changed something as the Cams now do seem to use 2Mbps instead of 1Mbps, which has dramatically improved video quality.
  
  Now Ring, PLEASE provide a setting that allows me to customize the Mbps rate for each of my cams! I want to tune the Mbps rate on a per-Cam basis. Many I would set to 2.5 Mbps. And a couple I would set to 4 Mbps.

• WiFi Roaming: I just found out that Ring devices are dumb (Ring support told me this) when it comes to multiple wireless access points with the same SSID (wifi roaming). Ring devices just blindly connect to any random AP with a matching SSID and do not pay attention to the signal strength (or effective bandwidth; or if the AP has a working internet connection) of the AP. Most client devices (phone, tablets, notebook computers, etc), DO automatically (smartly) switch.

  UPDATE 2018/01/01: I was told by Ring (but I have not yet tested) that a Ring cam 'will roam to the strongest signal IF it determines the signal it is on is not adequate' -- but I have not yet tested nor verified this.
  
  Why this matters: Because Ring devices can connect to a far away weak/slow AP when there is a strong/fast AP right next to (installed just feet away from) the Ring device! This actually happened to me, which is why I discovered this issue.
  
  Also, it sure would be nice if the Ring devices were smart enough to 'hunt' for an access point with the best internet connection speed. Consider the case of many access points, all with the same SSID, and maybe one AP of many has no internet.

• Video Size is NOT 1920×1080: Why does this MP4 analyzer report that the video stream in Ring Floodlight Cam MP4's is 1909.89×1080. The result under Windows on a 1920×1080 display is a visible black vertical bar (around 5 to 6 pixels) on the left and right side of the display. For some reason, this impacts Floodlight cams, but not some of Ring's other doorbell cams. Strange.
  
  
• Motion Alerts are SO slow: Why does it take several (3+) SECONDS for my phone to alert me to motion on a Cam? This instead should easily be nearly instantaneous.

  I can connect to and download an entire simple web page in less than 0.623 seconds with 2.4 GHz wireless (duckware.com home page using Google Chrome, 24 requests, and looking at the F12 Network waterfall). So Ring sending a simple notification from the Cam into the 'cloud' and back to a phone should actually be much faster than this. So why is it so slow?

• Alphabetic ordering of Cam names: In the phone app, Cams are grouped first by doorbell cams, then by security cams, and then alphabetic within each group. Annoying since I have fourteen Ring cams.

  This issue was mostly resolved when the Ring app implemented camera previews. I can now tap/hold and move and reorder the cams as I see fit.

• Random ordering of cams in web interface: In the web browser interface, cameras are ordered randomly. With lots of cameras, this makes selecting a single camera frustrating (manually searching a list).
  
  
• Videos are still being processed indicator: The app prevents you from clicking on a video that is still being processed in the cloud (it does not put a 'right arrow' on the video until it is ready). However, the web app puts a 'right arrow' on every video, even those still processing in the cloud -- and you then get a "This video is processing" error message.
  
  

So just knowing the file size of a Ring MP4, and video length, you can quickly assume 102.3 kbps for audio, and the rest of the kbps to video (without using the analyzer above).

When I first installed my Floodlight Cam, a MP4 from the Cam had a video bitrate of 636 kbps and an audio bitrate of 102 kbps. After getting Ring to change to Cam from 'auto' to '1080p', the video bitrate increased to around 950 kbps. In Jan 2018, the video bitrate was upwards of 1660 kbps.

Another big jump: And now in April 2018, I regularly see video bitrates around 2.5 Mbps.

Another jump: And now in November 2018, I see some of the cam video bitrates around 3.0 Mbps.

But, a reduction! But now in early 2019, most cam bitrates are now 2.4 Mbps.

I find it a little more than interesting how many local police departments / communities are endorsing Ring cams (more info), many offering incentives and discounts for purchases in exchange for a promise from homeowners to turn over recorded videos when there is security incident. That says a lot about this 'recording sound' issue!

Or, under Windows, go into a DOS command prompt and type "netsh wlan show networks mode=bssid" to see similar information.

Quite frankly, the 2.4 GHz band is WAY too crowded to reliably support 'realtime' video. I often see 20+ SSID show up in scans, which is crazy. And that is at the end of a cul-de-sac (no homes on one side of me). And strangely, this is why the 5 GHz wifi band is actually much better! Since 5 GHz has a reduced range (over 2.4 GHz), you simply will not see, and will NOT have to compete/share the wireless band with as many neighbors (you might very well get the band all to yourself)!

So paradoxically, the reduced range of 5 GHz actually is a huge benefit for everyone -- as everyone can then have their own wifi band to themselves, that is NOT shared with neighbors!

WiFi Analyzer Access Points

TIP: And make sure that you are looking at 2.4 GHz access points (channels 1 to 11) and not 5 GHz access points (channels 36 to 165). Also, the advantage of the phone app is that you can physically move your phone to the Ring Cam installation point -- like against a wall for a doorbell Cam, or up high for the FloodLight Cam, etc.

My experience is that the RSSI observed by the phone will be very close to the RSSI observed by the Ring Cam. Very nice for planning before you purchase a Cam.

TIP: In most cases, regardless of RSSI, I install a new access point. This allows me to set/fix a wifi channel in the AP that is unique/different from the wifi in the rest of the house. In this way, the AP servicing the Ring Cam gets its own dedicated wifi channel, and is NOT impacted by heavy wifi use on other wifi channels at the house (but it could be impacted by neighbors)! I have been buying a new "wave 2" 5GHz router for the main house and then repurposing the old router as an access point for the Ring cam. I then move as many wifi devices in the house as possible onto the new 5 GHz band (and off the 2.4 GHz band).

Ring Cams work best with a very strong wifi signal. Yes, they do work with an 'OK' wifi signal, but I use Ring Cams as a 'security' device, and I want to guarantee very strong (reliable) signal for the Cam.

Extenders: I avoid wifi extenders at all cost. By definition, they consume wifi bandwidth to accomplish their task (receive a wifi signal and then retransmit that same wifi signal). It is for this reason that I would never use a Ring Chime Pro to 'extend' wifi range for a cam. Whenever possible, always run wired ethernet and add a new 'access point'.

If you need to purchase an AP: Most routers today have the option to be configured as an 'access point'. So buy an inexpensive 2.4 Ghz only 'router' and configure it as an 'access point', meant to be used only by the Ring Cam. I have been picking up Netgear JNR3210's (a N300 Gigabit router) for under $20 on eBay.

1) Ensure a strong wifi signal: Install a Wifi Analyzer on your phone, and place your phone at various Ring cam installation spots -- and select a spot with the best / strongest wifi signal (or move your router, or add an access point)! A "dBm" value of -40 or -50 (or better) is great. A dBm value of -60 is at the limit of being OK. But a dBm value of -70 (or worse) is not good (for Ring cams).

TIP: You can avoid all wifi issues by using a Ring cam that supports PoE. Currently, there are two such cams: (1) Video Doorbell Elite, and (2) Stick Up Cam Elite.

2) Verify good Mbps throughput: There is a new troubleshooting section below that helps you to verify good Mbps throughput. This allows you to find where upload speeds are slow -- as slow upload speeds somewhere are a major cause of Ring cam quality problems.

TIP: Ring says "Requires a minimum upload speed of 1Mbps, but 2 Mbps is recommended for optimal performance". BUT, Ring cams use around 2.5 Mbps upload bandwidth per cam NOW (July 2019), and in the future, will likely use 3+ Mbps per cam. So, budget 4+ Mbps upload bandwidth per Ring cam.

3) Wait for firmware update: Do NOT immediately interact with the cam after installing and setting up the cam! It is very hard to not immediately play around, but WAIT (usually just only minutes) and give the cam time to update its software (firmware). Wait until the firmware version in the "device health" in the app shows "Up to date" -- and THEN start playing around.

4) Leave your network alone: Give your Ring cam time to detect your network conditions and 'ramp up' the video Mbps rate to higher quality settings (I have seen the ramp up take place in one afternoon, but it may take days). The video bitrate right after installing your cam will likely be low (around 1.0 Mbps) -- but after a day or so, the Mbps will be much higher (like around 2.5 Mbps provided your network supports that). Ring appears to allow a faster ramp up for cams connected PoE/ethernet vs cams connected wirelessly.

UPDATE: Ring app RSSI information

The goal is to have a reliable Internet UPLOAD speed of at least 4 Mbps per camera. And hopefully you will have actual upload speeds well above that. It is now very common to see ISP uploads speeds of at least 12 Mbps.

For example, on one of my Floodlight cams with a RSSI of -56, I saw a ping test result of 22ms, which means 1000/22 or 45 Mbps. Please note that this Mbps value is actual throughput. Actual throughput is around 55% to 75% PHY wireless speed -- so PHY wireless Mbps speed is around 133% to 181% of actual throughput Mbps. Understanding wifi speeds.

Next run the ping test above several times. Are the ms times seen relatively flat or all over the place? ms times 'relatively flat' implies the cam has wifi mostly to itself. ms times 'all over the place' implies that there is wifi contention / interference / etc.

This computed Mbps contains overhead (up to several milliseconds), and therefore is an underestimate of the actual Mbps, but that is OK and intentional. Also, this test assumes that the speed wirelessly to the cam is roughly the same as the wireless speed from the cam (which may not be true in all situations).

The Mbps math is: "62500×2×8/1000000 / ((ms-overhead)/1000)", which simplifies to "1000/(ms-overhead)". And since we are OK with a small underestimate of the true Mbps speed, we can set the unknown 'overhead' to zero, resulting in a final calculation of: "1000/ms" (actual Mbps speed is this value, or larger).

NOTE/WARNING: If a ping of size 62500 to your cam fails, just use any large ping size that does work and then use the full Mbps formula.

TIP: Or try manually setting your Ethernet port speed to 100 Mbps. I had this happen once with a PC connected at 1 Gbps. But with the Ring cam operating at 100 Mbps, some 'switch' between the PC and the cam could not properly buffer the fragmented ping and was dropping fragments (WireShark showed a 'fragment reassembly timeout').

A final note: Because Ring cams use wireless (a shared resource), upload throughput will change over time as other people (or even neighbors) use the same wireless channel.

• Access Point (AP): If your cam is connecting to an access point (and not the wireless in your main router), test to the IP address of the AP while connected to the wifi of the AP. If under Windows, use "netsh wlan show interfaces" and confirm that the BSSID your PC is connected to is a MAC address from the AP. Because for this test, you want your PC connected (wirelessly) to the AP and not wireless device like your main router.
  
  
• Router: To find the IP address of your router, run a "ping -i 1 8.8.8.8" and take note of the device replying with a "TTL expired in transit". The IP address will be something like 192.168.1.1, 10.0.0.1, or similar. If under Windows, this ip address should match the "Default Gateway" reported by running "ipconfig".

  TIP: Unless you really know what you are doing, you may end up connecting your PC to a wifi AP that is different than what you cam is using. This is especially a concern if your 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless bands have the same SSID name. Maybe temporarily rename other SSIDs to something different and unique so your cam (and you) connect to the same (only one possible) SSID.

• Modem: If you have a separate modem (not a router+modem integrated into a single device), 192.168.100.1 is a very common IP address for modems. To test and verify, go into a web browser and type in an address of "http://192.168.100.1" -- do you get a web page from your modem?
  
  
• First Internet Hop: Use "ping -i 2 8.8.8.8" and take note of the ip address reporting "TTL expired in transit". Note that speeds to this ip address are most often asymmetric (download speed is much faster than upload speed), so what matters more than absolute "ms" timing is seeing consistent "ms" reply times and NO dropped packets. In a cable system, this hop is often times the CMTS.
  
  
• Ring Servers: Ring uses AWS (Amazon Web Services). It would be very unusual, but possible, for your ISP to have peering performance problems with AWS.

A factory reset is a last resort, but at one location, it helped! A factory reset of the cable modem immediately caused Ring cam bitrates to dramatically improve.

Ring PoE

PoE's huge advantage: No wireless issues whatsoever! Both power and ethernet enter the cam via a single Cat5 cable. Hopefully Ring will add PoE/ethernet jacks into all future 'wired' cams.

BV-Tech PoE+ Switch on Amazon

Warning: Do NOT get a 'passive' PoE injector. Instead you want a true ethernet network switch (802.3at standard) with 4 (or more) PoE+ ports.

My Ring PoE cams use 4 Watts: When I asked Ring how many 'watts' their PoE cams use (or alternatively, what power class the cam is in), Ring was unable to answer the question! So after receiving the cams, I hooked up a Kill-A-Watt electricity meter, which indicated that the new Ring Stick Up Cam wired (V2 2018) and AMPS5E4P-AT-65 together uses around 4 watts (with IR on; less with IR off).

Long reach PoE test over 1000' of coax

Tip: Please note that IF you have electrical power at both ends, the 'best' solution is to use fiber to extend Ethernet over a long distance (as this avoids lightning concerns).

UPDATE: Some 10/100 PoE+ switches now come with an 'extend' switch, that when enabled, claim to support PoE up to 800 feet but only at 10 Mbps speeds. But I was looking for a solution that could provide faster speeds at 1000 feet!

UPDATE: The first thing I did is TEST. I took the 1000' spool of coax, added coax ends, connected everything up, and the Ring cam worked right away (see photo right). I also ran a speed test and got the fast speeds I was looking for. After this successful test, I dug a trench from the house to the security gate, buried the coax in conduit, connected it all back up and everything has been running rock solid since November 2017 (but see 'critical warning' further below).

LINOVISION EoC

PoE extender

TIP: Use a 'Kill a Watt' electricity usage monitor to confirm that the watts used with all connected cams at maximum power draw is below the maximum limit by an acceptable safety margin.

Also, beware passive extenders. You want a true PoE switch that is itself powered by PoE.

Ethernet Sharing

This technique obviously will NOT work with PoE cams that only support passive power which uses the 'spare' pairs in the cable to deliver power. The good news is that any modern PoE cam should support the 802.3 at/af standards.

My cams were installed in 2017. In mid 2018, Ring came out with a new hardware revision of the Ring Video Doorbell Pro cam. One way to tell which hardware revision you have is by looking at the FCC ID stamped on the cam label. The first hardware revision is 2AEUPBHALP011. The second hardware revision is 2AEUPBHALP021.

But what is bizarre is that Ring technical supports says that the cam DOES support DFS channels (even though Ring chat says the cam does not) -- even insisting that internal testing at Ring shows the cam working on DFS channels. But this same tech person could NOT get my cam working on DFS channels.

New Format: At some point the Serial Number format changed.

Ring S/N: "BHPPCCCUUYWWD####" BH = Company: BH=Bot Home Automation (aka: Ring) PP = Product: SW=Stick Up Cam Wired, F1=Floodlight Cam, etc Y = Year manufactured WW = Week manufactured D = Day (of week) manufactured #### = Unique ID

[Source: FCC filed document]

Old format:

Ring S/N: "BHPPYYWWFFXXXXXX" BH = Company: BH=Bot Home Automation (aka: Ring) PP = Product: SW=Stick Up Cam Wired, F1=Floodlight Cam, etc YY = Year manufactured: 18=2018, 19=2019, etc WW = Week manufactured FF = Factory location/code: CH=Chicony, HZ=Huizho, LH=Long Huan, etc XXXXXX = Unique ID

[Source: FCC filed document]

Date	FCC ID	Ring Product	S/N PP	PoE
2021/04/14	2AEUPBHAFL021	Floodlight Cam Wired Plus		-
2021/04/12	2AEUPBHAFL031	Floodlight Cam Wired Pro		-
2021/04/07	2AEUPBHARG071	Video Doorbell 4		-
2021/02/24	2AEUPBHALP031	Video Doorbell Pro 2		-
2021/01/27	2AEUPBHAGC001	Video Doorbell Wired		-
2020/12/11	2AEUPBHALP012	Video Doorbell Pro (V3)	L1	-
2020/02/02	2AEUPBHARG051	Video Doorbell 3	RG	-
2020/05/06	2AEUPBHARG061	Video Doorbell (2nd generation)		-
2019/10/28	2AEUPBHASC052	Stick Up Cam Elite	SW	YES
2019/09/16	2AEUPBHARC011	Spotlight Cam Wired	RC	-
2019/07/11	2AEUPBHASC071	Stick Up Cam Lite	SL	-
2019/07/09	2AEUPBHAIC001	Indoor Cam		-
2019/06/20	2AEUPBHAFL011	Floodlight Cam (V2)	F2	-
2019/05/24	2AEUPBHADV001	Door View Cam	RV	-
2019/03/26	2AEUPBHARG031	Video Doorbell		-
2019/01/30	2AEUPBHARG043	Ring Doorbell V2	RG	-
2018/10/16	2AEUPBHASC061	Stick Up Cam Battery		-
2018/10/08	2AEUPBHASC042	Stick Up Cam Battery		-
2018/08/21	2AEUPBHASC051	Stick Up Cam Wired	SW	YES
2018/03/13	2AEUPBHARG041	Video Doorbell 2		-
2018/03/06	2AEUPBHALP021	Video Doorbell Pro (V2)		-
2017/05/11	2AEUPBHAJB001	Video Doorbell Elite	J1	YES
2017/03/28	2AEUPBHAFL001	Floodlight Cam (V1)	F1	-
2016/04/27	2AEUPBHALP011	Video Doorbell Pro (V1)	L1	-

Ring Video Doorbell Pro

If you installed a Ring Video Doorbell Pro before the Spring of 2018, you almost certainly installed V1 hardware. V1 hardware has an FCC ID of "2AEUPBHALP011". V2 hardware has an FCC ID of "2AEUPBHALP021".

Given that I use Ring cams to primarily keep tabs on remote locations (that I am not at), Ring's attitude of 'oh well, just set the cam up again' does not work (since I am clearly not at the cam).

How? Easy, just go to any Ring cam, open the Ring app on your phone, create a new dummy Ring account, click on "set up device", and just follow ALL of the directions in the app (the app tells you to perform a critical step that I am not disclosing here)! At the end, you will see the Ring cam in your Ring app/account (and the cam will be removed from the owner's Ring app/account) and as far as Ring is concerned, YOU now 'own' that Ring camera. Congratulations!

The prior owner WILL be notified and receive a "Your Ring Device Has Changed Ownership" email from Ring, but contacting Ring and telling them that the ownership transfer was not authorized does not help to get your camera back. Ring will tell you to go to the cam and set the cam up again. And worst of all, the "Event History" of recorded videos will be wiped clean, so you will have no idea who stole ownership of your cam.

Why this works: Apparently because Ring's only test for camera 'ownership' is: If you can physically touch the cam and set it up, you are the owner of the cam.