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Ring Video Doorbell and existing chime?

9K views 22 replies 9 participants last post by  WWEFreak666 
#1 · (Edited)
Does anyone have a Ring video doorbell that they were able to get working with their existing mechanical chime(s)? Their specs and wiring diagrams say that it should be compatible with existing 8VAC-24VAC transformers yet all I can get is the electrical hum (which is usually caused by a continuously closed doorbell circuit).

Anyone "been there fixed that"?

Thanks.
 
#3 ·
H'mmm.... Interesting.

Before the Ring did you have two buttons and two chimes? For example, it's common to have a button on the front door and back door and a chime upstairs and downstairs. The front door button making a ding-dong sound and back door button just a ding. Was your setup like that @vmpv?

Also do you happen to remember if your transformer has two posts like this: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.wired-door-chime-transformer.1000106408.html or three posts like this: https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.wired-door-chime-transformer.1000110404.html ?

Thanks.
 
#4 ·
Simple one button/one chime doorbell and two post transformer. Before getting the Ring, I had changed the chime and had the same experience as you with the hum. It took me a little it to figure out I was looking at the wiring the wrong way. Good luck.
 
#7 ·
Is it as good as advertised?...
I have the original Ring Doorbell and in my situation, I would only give it a fair to good grade although no question, better than what it replaced.

My problem seems to be that out the front door where the Ring is mounted, there is a covered porch with the underside being white. This seems to mess with the video and prevents the camera from seeing clearly much past the porch. When the video is triggered, the picture comes on too strong, almost white, (bloom mode?) before gradually adjusting to showing the porch and not much past. Interestingly enough, late afternoon when the sun drops below the level protected by the porch and shines directly into the camera, the picture is stunning and I can see vehicles clearly probably 100 yards across the median. Strange. I did take a short try at shading the Ring but I didn't have any success and it would look weird if I did no doubt. I'm sure if I had the video quality of late afternoon all the time, then the device would work a lot better in my case and raise my rating from fair to great.

I generally monitor the doorbell with my Airpad2. I also have an android device that reacts a lot quicker than my IOS device. I generally find the "motion" alerts to be useless in realtime as since the doorbell itself doesn't pick much up until they are practically on my porch due to the lighting problem and then the delay sending it to a IOS device means whatever triggered the motion is likely long gone before the video is delivered to my device. I will get the notification of a motion alert then have to wait for a minute or longer to get the video. I do depend mostly on wireless when out in public so this obviously contributes to the problem. I'm sure if I was on cellular then the notifications would come a lot quicker. Actual rings are a lot better.

I bought the Ring fairly early on and despite the above quibbles, am quite pleased with the product and the above problems are certainly offset by the advantages of knowing what's going on.

(Good luck North_of_Calgary, I hope you figure it out. It's certainly supposed to handle your configuration and it isn't something that should be over complicated for the device to work. Perhaps you are hitting the same stumbling block I encountered the first time I started messing around with the wiring...)
 
#9 ·
Put one of these in yesterday. Bit of a pain to get set up and still get messages that my phone won't connect at times, but after some time with their support, I got an extra 2 months of cloud storage and it will record events, even if I can't see them live on the phone. Hardwired in and no new issues with my doorbell (it has never worked right but is working the same as it was, so nothing to do with the Ring). Need to tweak the motion sensor some more as traffic is still setting it off.

Might buy a second camera for the back door as that is where someone has tried to break in in the past.

Anyway, wiring it in was the simplest part.
 
#11 ·
It appears that you have it wired for 24V. Since the range required is 8V to 24V you're right at the upper limit. These transformers are not precise; you may actually be above or below 24V.

If I were wiring this, I would move the white wire to the top screw to provide 16V - nearer to the center of the required range. That's just me, maybe too cautious?

Also.. I don't know the current requirement of the Ring. On your transformer, the 24V tap supplies 20 Watts, the 16V tap supplies 10 Watts. It may not matter, but worth noting.
 
#12 ·
Thanks! I didn't mess with this at all, only wired Ring to the existing doorbell wires outside. I am assuming the transformer wired this way because that's what the interior door chime requires (as wired by the builder)?. Ring is working fine, but it is apparently supposed to stay charged when hardwired and it doesn't seem to be doing that. It must be getting enough power (or more than enough as you say), so I don't know why the battery level keeps dropping. I'll leave it be for now, and show my brother when he comes by.
 
#13 ·
You know, they're kind of vague on this. All it says is: "A Ring Doorbell can also be connected to an existing mechanical or electronic doorbell chime that operates at a voltage between 8VAC and 24VAC. Once connected, pressing the button on your Ring Doorbell will trigger your existing chime. The doorbell wires will keep your battery charged as well. (Note: Depending on usage and temperature, the power from the doorbell wires may not be enough to keep your Ring charged, and the battery percentage may drop slightly over time.)"
 
#14 ·
Just in case anyone else has the same questions, I phoned them, and what they say is that the wiring will provide a "trickle charge" to Ring (classic) but it still might need to be brought in for a charge periodically. Ring Pro will stay charged when hardwired (needs 24VAC).
 
#17 ·
Bought a Ring Doorbell on boxing week. Have a question. Their documentation says that it has to be connected to power to make live view work. Anyone used live view?

I have not connected it to power yet, The ring works, but the motion detect does not work unless I set it to frequent. Is this the case with your setup?
 
#18 ·
I can use live view but my Ring video doorbell is hard wired. Although our motion detection area was adjustable, large vehicles over 10 m away would set if off, which can be more annoying than helpful. Also, even though it is hard wired, we also get a message that the battery is low and needs to be recharged.
 
#23 ·
Bought this for Christmas for the house and it works pretty good. We didn't have an existing doorbell, so have decided to use the battery... We decided to use double sided outdoor tape to mount the mount and install the doorbell. We charged it to 100% and started using it on the day after boxing day and had to charge it again two days ago. Therefore, the 3 months they say is highly unlikely. I'm okay with one month, considering we have so many devices these days that have to be charged every day, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

However, the app for the device (or my device itself - I am unsure which) has a few faults. The app falsely reports the battery percentage. I've seen it go from 71% down to 20% and warn me about the battery being low and then the next day it'll jump up to 50%. In other words, the percentages are all over the place and are very unhelpful in knowing when to charge the device. I had multiple reports from Ring that my device was low and that I should charge it. But looking at the percentages change so often, I didn't bother until it was too late. This is frustrating, because if the device completely dies then you have to set up the device all over again and this can be a headache.

What I'm wondering is anyone else having this issue of inaccurate battery reporting in the app? or is my device faulty?
 
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