Fixing Ring Doorbell False Motion Alerts

If your Ring Doorbell false motion alerts are constantly disturbing you, in this post, you will learn several approaches to fix them and effective ways to prevent them in the future.

The whole purpose of the doorbell is gone if you are occasionally taking a peek outside to find out that it was another false alarm.

Keep reading and by the end of this post, you will know how to entirely minimize the false alerts.

To prevent false motion alerts on Ring Doorbell, you would need to perform a few steps to exclude the chances of having them. 

The most important of all would be to uplift your detector’s weight meter above 50 pounds to eliminate the possibility of pets and birds activating your alarm.

Next, you should get rid of any objects that might be interfering with the detectors and replace the batteries if they are worn out.

There is much more to do besides everything we have explained that far so keep reading to learn everything you need to do.

Before we discuss how to eliminate the chances of a false alarm further, let’s take a look at the possible reasons why your Ring Doorbell constantly emits motion alerts.

Why Does Ring Motion Sensor False Alarm?

To provide you with insights and transparency on the possible causes, we’ve listed the most frequent reasons for your Ring Doorbell to constantly trigger its motion alarm.

Most of the time the cause is related to something minor such as a swinging branch or an object transpassing in front of the detector in case of wind.

We assume you have already checked the obvious so here are some of the unusual causes that you should be aware of:

• Pets and animals triggering the alarm.
• Warned out batteries.
• Software glitch.
• Furious weather.
• Smoke or severe fog.
• Inappropriate mounting.
• Hardware sensor problem.

If one thing is for certain it would be that bad weather can trigger your motion alarm anytime and there is not much you can do about it.

As far as the way you’ve installed the detector, the batteries, and configuration, it all depends on you and this is exactly what we will pay attention to next.

How To Prevent Ring Doorbell False Motion Alerts?

With all that in mind, it is now time to explore ways to prevent a false motion alarm on your Ring Doorbell.

We’ve listed many different ways to completely eliminate or at least minimize the false alarms and all these approaches can be applied right away!

Lower Detector Sensitivity

This is a perfect solution if you have one or multiple larger pets in your household or outside.

The Ring Doorbell Alarm uses Passive Infrared sensors (PIR) to scan the environment in front of it gathering information such as head, weight, and size.

By default, your detector should be configured to identify and exclude pets, but if yours are more than one or larger in size, dogs, for example, you would need to configure the setting yourself.

Note:

Before you proceed with re-configuring the sensitivity we recommend testing if your pets actually trigger the alarm. Simply bring them there.

The Detector Sensitivity setting can be found in the Device Profile menu of your mobile ring application.

Once there make sure to choose one of the lowest or the lowest possible states for the motion sensor sensitivity.

Lowering the motion sensitivity is a winning move even if you don’t have your own pets.

Dogs constantly scatter the streets and birds could occasionally fly by your detector. With lower sensitivity, you can count that only unauthorized human presence will be identified.

Remove Objects of Interference

Instead of listing every possible object that could trigger your Ring Doorbell motion sensor alarm, we’re going to inspect the factors these objects usually have.

Anything from shiny items and flickering particles to moving objects such as tree branches, leaves, and flying particles can interfere and trigger the detector’s sensor.

It sounds like a rare occasion but if you are using your Ring Doorbell with a higher sensitivity you need to ensure that your Ring has nothing in front of it.

Take a look around for any objects that might get in front of the receiver in case of wind or other circumstances.

If there is nothing that might be causing the Ring Doorbell false rings, move on to the next solution.

Inappropriate Mounting

There are a variety of ways and places to mount your Ring Doorbell and if yours is not stable or loose, it might easily trigger a false motion alarm.

Check if opening the door and closing it harder, makes your detector move or wiggle.

Check if any activity when transpassing nearby the detector can cause any movement or disbalance the position of the detector.

Next take a look at the way your detector is facing and make sure that it is not pointing towards windows, air vents, or any heat sources.

It is also recommended for your Ring Doorbell sensor to face a relatively flat area or at least avoid pointing it towards rocky or uneven terrain as well as an abrupt environment.

Ring Doorbell False Alarms Still There…

If you have applied all of our recommendations and the false alarms are still there, you’ve got some options left.

Maybe a little troubleshooting is all you need to get the issue out of they so shall we get started?

Power Cycle Ring Doorbell

To power cycle your Ring Doorbell you would need to plug out its entire power supply for about 5 minutes.

You need to be patient and let all the current flee out of the device, after which you will deliver a fresh flow of power.

Check if the false triggers are still there and if yes, read next how to perform a factory reset.

Factory Reset Ring Doorbell

This method is completely not necessary if you haven’t applied all of our recommendations to avoid false alarms.

Only if you are 100% sure that the issue is still there even though there is no interference at all.

If this is the case, a factory reset will exclude the possibility of a software bug.

Note:

A factory reset will wipe the entire Ring data including all personal configurations.

Here is how to perform a factory reset on a Ring Doorbell:

1. Remove the faceplate and press the Reset button on the side for 20 seconds.
2. Once released, the Ring light should blink several times as an indication of a restart.
3. Once restarted the Ring Doorbell will be reverted to factory default settings.

Connect to the Doorbell with the mobile app to carry out the set-up process and test if there will be any false alarms.

Read Next: Why is My Ring Doorbell Camera not Working?

Last Thoughts

We hope that now you know why Ring Doorbell false motion alerts appear and most importantly how to resolve the issue at home.

Feel free to apply all of our recommendations to minimize false alarms as much as possible.

In case nothing helps, then you might be having an issue with the sensor itself where your next step should be reaching out to Ring customer service.

If you’re interested in more posts related to Ring Doorbell and how to resolve issues impacting its functionality, make sure to visit our blog and find a solution.