How to Use Your Ring Video Doorbell Home Automation Device

Every aspect of your Ring Doorbell’s operation can be controlled through the Ring App. This guide will show you the Ring Doorbell’s functions as well as how to find and control it in the Ring App.

From the home screen of the Ring app, select the device you want to manage. The devices dashboard will come up. Options are explained below.

• Ring Alerts - This will turn your notifications for when the doorbells button is pressed on or off. Only affects mobile device on which the option is toggled.
• Motion Alerts - This will turn your notifications for activity in any of the device’s motion zones on and off. Only affects mobile device on which the option is toggled.
• Battery (only present for battery powered devices)- This shows you how much charge is left in the battery.
• Live View (only present for hardwired devices)- Opens a live video stream from your Ring camera.
• Event History - Brings you to a screen where you can review video footage of any alerts you’ve received. In order to access recordings you will need to have an active Ring Protect Plan subscription.
• Device Health - Brings you to a new panel that contains all of the operational information on your camera. If something goes wrong, the information and tools on this page will help you solve it.
• Motion Settings - Brings up your motion detection control panel. From here you can customize your motion detection preferences.
• Linked Chimes - If you have a Ring Chime, you can set it to go off when your camera detects motion.
• Shared Users - This allows you to give friends or family members access to your camera. If they already have a Ring account, enter the email address of their Ring account, otherwise they’ll receive an invitation at the email address you enter to create a new account.

Depending on your Ring device, there are two different types of notifications you’ll receive. While cameras only send out Motion Alerts, the doorbell products feature both Motion Alerts and Ring Alerts.

Ring Alerts are notifications sent to you whenever someone presses the front button on your Ring Doorbell.

Motion Alerts are notifications you receive when one of your Ring device senses motion.

If you interact with the Alert you will get a Live View of what the camera of the device is showing.

Live events can be viewed when receiving a notification triggered by motion detection, someone pushing the button on your doorbell or accessing Live View from the devices dashboard in the Ring app.

During live events you can access these features:

1. Two-way Talk - Speak to visitors and hear what they have to say.
2. Siren - Activate the siren.
3. Lights - Turn the lights on and off.
4. Ring Neighborhoods – Share suspicious events with neighbors.
   

The Event History on the home screen of the Ring app shows you captured events across all your devices.

Whereas the Event History that you access from the devices dashboard shows you captured events by that specific device only.

If you have the Ring Protect Plan which includes cloud video recording, then you can review any of the recorded video events.

Access the Motion Settings from the devices dashboard screen:

• Motion Sensitivity - Allows you to adjust the amount of alerts you receive. Choose People Only to get motion alerts from humans only.
• Motion Zones
  • For hardwired devices you can draw up to three custom areas where you’d like to receive motion alerts or trigger the lights.
    
  • For battery powered devices select the zones that you would like covered and set the range for how far the device to detect motion.
    
• Motion Schedule - Schedule times when you don’t want to receive motion alerts.