Ring’s doorbell and surveillance cameras surrounding your property are incredible for making you feel more secure and preventing burglaries. Still, they can also make you feel self-conscious at times – particularly when you’re relaxing in your backyard, and a Ring outdoor camera is filming you 24/7, like the all-seeing eye of Sauron. Though maybe a little dramatic, it is sometimes refreshing to be able to turn off the camera and forget that you are being filmed.
Fortunately, you have several choices accessible to you for temporarily or permanently turning off your Ring cameras’ recording capabilities. On the other hand, some depend on app features that are still being pushed out over the globe.
Continue perusing for the text guide clarifying the six choices accessible to you, or go ahead and look at my YouTube video for this.
Option 1 – use modes
The Ring has introduced a fantastic new feature called modes, which enables you to choose whether you’re out or at home — and then select various camera behaviors depending on your location – without having to change your phone’s settings. When you’re at home, for example, interior cameras won’t capture anything. This is a stand-alone function in the Ring app. Yet, it immediately combines with the Ring Alarm feature and other features (implying that if you venture out from home through the Alert framework, the cameras will adjust appropriately).
Go to the Ring app’s menu and choose ‘New Features’ from the drop-down menu to enable this option. There should be a part that says, “Your Cameras are now capable of working with modes.” This is accessible in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as I think several other nations – but if you don’t see the choice right away, give it a few months, and you should see it. The new feature will describe what it does and that it has three modes: Disarmed, Home, and Away, which you can choose from when you click on the button.
The ‘Home’ and ‘Disarmed’ modes on your interior Ring cameras will not be recorded by default; nevertheless, the same is true for other Ring cameras (and doorbells). In ‘Away mode, all Ring cameras and doorbells will continue to record the same manner as before.
You may, however, tweak this function after it has been activated by selecting each mode and then selecting a camera to customize the recording behavior of that camera in each mode by clicking on it.
For my Ring Doorbell Genius (when I’m inside my house), I was able to stop the motion detection and live view capabilities using this method. Even though this function is ideal for me and my needs, there are a few drawbacks.
The doorbell itself does not have a setting to turn off the recording. In principle, any of the Ring gadgets could record even with these settings turned off (because it is a software option rather than rolling out an actual improvement to the camera). Everything you’ve done is turn off programmed movement recording and manual ‘Live View’ clicks, which is all you’ve done. Please continue reading for other solutions if you are very suspicious (or have merely heard the stories regarding Ring’s engineers watching your video feed without permission).
Option 2 – disable motion detection.
You may deactivate motion detection through the Ring app if utilizing Modes is not currently feasible or if you do not want to disable motion detection all of the time while you are at home since it is inconvenient. As a result, while you’re working or lounging in your backyard, your Ring outdoor camera will not continue to record every time you move. This may help you feel more at ease in your garden, even though Sauron always keeps an eye on you (sorry, Ring).
To do this, enter the necessary information into the appropriate camera in your Ring app and toggle off “Record Motion.”
This will cause you (or anybody else) to be stopped from recording every moment motion is detected. After you’re finished, you may turn this back on. Also worth focusing on is that when you actuate the element “Modes,” you will see a little notice in the app stating that the Ring modes now control motion recording and that any modifications you make will be reversed when you switch to a different Ring mode. This is acceptable, and you can still stop motion detection on an as-needed basis if you so want.
The second option you may be tempted to try is to set up a Motion Schedule in the Motion Settings area of your Ring device’s settings menu. The period during which motion notifications will be suspended may be configured here.
The crucial term here is notifications — regrettably, motion-based recordings are still in use as a result. For those who are just annoyed by motion detections (particularly at night when a car’s lights may trigger it), this may be a handy function; but, if you want to prevent yourself from being filmed, this may not be the option for you.
Option 3 – turn the power off
A second option would be to turn off the power, assuming you have a hardwired Ring doorbell (the Pro) or a Ring camera plugs into a wall outlet. There are two arrangements accessible in the present circumstance: For starters, you may install a wall-mounted switch to turn on and off the electricity to your new Ring device.
Flipping this switch will turn off the electricity to your outdoor Ring camera, which will prevent it from capturing any additional footage. The disadvantage, however, is that you’ll have to put in more time running wire, which may not be feasible if you’re attempting to replace an existing outside light with a Ring cam.
The second alternative is to shut off the electricity to the whole circuit by using the electrical panel in your home (called a consumer unit in some countries).
While this may not be possible if you have a limited number of separate circuit switches (such as “downstairs” or only a few unlabeled fuses), it may be beneficial in a more current system.
It’s possible that if your whole family is spending the evening outside, you won’t need your groundfloor lights turned on – in which case, turning off this circuit switch will also deactivate any Ring cameras that are powered by this circuit.
Yes, turning off the power to your Ring device is a significant inconvenience, but it may be necessary for your particular situation.
Option 4 – use a physical barrier.
Finally, if none of the other solutions are practical, you may resort to the tried-and-true method of just covering the camera lens with your hands.
An inch or two of brown tape will do the trick, but be careful not to use too sticky tape since this may leave traces that will interfere with later recordings.
If that doesn’t work, you may try moving a plank of wood (or other equal-length construction material) to rest against it, which would cover the lens in the process.
The Ring camera must be easily accessible and not located at the very top of your fabricator.
Option 5 – turn off Ring’s internet access
Given that Ring devices do not have any local storage if they lose internet connectivity, what would delete their recordings? Some Snapshot Captures may be published, but full HD recordings will not be available.
Before you scream at me for asking you to switch off the internet connection for your whole home, consider that there is an alternative to shutting off your router.
In actuality, there are two options:
- Some routers provide a function known as a ‘guest network.’ Alternatively, you may activate this and have all of your Ring devices connect to it. Then, toggle this function on and off whenever you wish to stop recording capabilities temporarily.
- If you want to utilize a second internet router that serves as a WiFi repeater, you need to purchase a second internet router that will only use for your Ring devices. With this router, you can quickly switch off access whenever you want (or disconnect it if you like to do things as our forefathers would have done it!). This will prevent your Ring cameras from sending footage to Ring’s servers.
Some individuals already isolate their smart home network (through a VPN, guest network, or second router) out of concern for their privacy, which is similar to those folks.
Option 6 – Privacy Zones
Ring released a new ‘Privacy Zones’ feature in December 2019 (which is only accessible on certain devices), and it has now been backported to the Ring Doorbell 2. (on 6th May 2020).
Privacy Zones are intended to blackout a specific section of a Ring camera or doorbell’s video capture so that no recording (or motion detection) happens in that zone of the footage capture.
It’s similar to the way you can choose certain motion zones with hardwired/plugged-in Ring devices, and it’s a convenient option for stopping recording’ when you’re done recording. While recording will still occur using Privacy Zones, you may create a black box around the full field of vision, thereby making any recordings ineffective or even worthless.
To do as such, open the Ring application and sign in to your Ring gadget, then go to Device Settings, then Privacy Settings, before choosing the ‘Privacy Zones’ option. In this section, you may select “Add a Privacy Zone” to enter your camera’s live view and afterward click the “+” (in addition to) image in the upper right to begin creating your blacked-out region on the screen.
Using this feature, you can either permanently black out a portion of your property or temporarily black out a portion of your property if you’re going to be out in your backyard for an extended period (create a zone before you leave and delete it when you return – it takes 1-2 minutes total).
