YOUR Ring doorbell might be plugged in at the wrong height – and it’s a home surveillance nightmare.
Ring has revealed exactly how high up you should attach your camera-toting doorbell in an official warning to millions of users.
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Your Ring doorbell is meant to do two main things: snap video footage with a camera, and pick up movement with motion sensors.
And both of these systems are heavily affected by where you place it, and height is included.
“One of the biggest mistakes people make is mounting their Ring Video Doorbell too high,” explained Ring.
“In the belief that they need to do this in order to catch people’s faces.”
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Ring continued: “Viewing faces is not a problem if the Ring Video Doorbell is mounted at the correct height of approximately 1.2 metres above the ground.”
The 1.2-metre height rule translates to about 48 inches – any higher or lower and the Ring doorbell won’t work as well as it should.
And it’s not just the camera that’s affected.
The Ring Video Doorbell uses a network of passive infrared motion sensors.
They look for motion by monitoring heat within a specific detection area.
So when a human enters the area, the heat measurements change – and a motion response is triggered.
“The motion sensors register this change as movement and send out an alert,” Ring said.
The company went on: “The motion sensors have a much more focused field of view than the camera.
“The motion sensors in your Ring Video Doorbell are designed to detect motion up to 155 degrees horizontally, and from 1.5 to 7.5 metres outward from the fixture.”
Ring warned that the sensors are more sensitive to horizontal movement than vertical in the detection area.
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So you need to follow the height guidelines, or Ring warns that you’ll pick up the wrong things.
For instance, put it too high and you’ll accidentally catch the heat of passing cars rather than incoming visitors.
That means you’ll receive movement alerts when you shouldn’t, which can be very annoying.
And it also means that the Ring doorbell might miss motion that is very low and close to the door.
RING DOORBELL PLANS – HOW MUCH DOES A SUBSCRIPTION COST?
Here are your options…
Basic
Ring description: “Get the basics with video event playback and smarter notifications.”
- Up to 180 days of Video Event History
- Person and Package Alerts
- Video Preview Alerts
- 10% off Ring.com purchases
Standard
Ring description: “An elevated Ring experience with enhanced features and helpful automations.”
- Everything in Basic
- Covers all your devices at one location
- Doorbell Calls
- Extended Live View
- Alarm Cellular Backup
- Daily Event Summary
Premium
Ring description: “Get everything you need with our most advanced video and security features.”
- Everything in Standard
- Covers all your devices at one location
- 24/7 Recording
- Continuous Live View
- Smart Video Search
Picture Credit: Amazon / Ring
This motion is used to trigger the Ring doorbell into recording video, so you might miss out on some footage if the motion sensors aren’t in the best position.
So if you’ve forked out on a fancy Amazon-owned Ring doorbell, you might as well get it set up properly – don’t let your money go to waste.
Of course, you can always move the doorbell back to its original position if you find that you’re getting too many (or not enough) motion alerts.
“The proper positioning of your Ring Video Doorbell depends on a number of factors including the layout of your garden, the distance from your front door and the street, objects within the doorbell’s field of view, the height of the door and more,” Ring noted.
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