Why Is My Ring Not Notifying Me of Motion? (Fix in Minutes)

If you’ve been asking yourself, “Why is my Ring not notifying me of motion?” you’re in the right place! 

It’s frustrating when your doorbell or camera misses key events, like a package drop-off or someone at the door.

Well, luckily, the problems are often straightforward, including internet connectivity, motion detection, smartphone notification settings, or application permissions.

Let’s get started and bring those notifications back!

Why is My Ring Not Notifying Me of Motion and How to Fix?

Note: Have you tried restarting your Ring doorbell?

1. Verify Your Doorbell is Online

Your Ring doorbell will stop capturing motion and cease all notifications when it’s offline.

An offline device cannot detect events or send alerts, so you must check its status in the Ring app’s main dashboard.

If it’s offline, it won’t work until reconnected, hence if you see “offline” status, then you must reconnect the unit.

How to Reconnect Your Offline Doorbell?

Follow these steps to connect your Ring doorbell to your network:

1. Hold the Setup button for 10 seconds.
2. Open the Ring application dashboard.
3. Press the three dots next to your doorbell.
4. Select “Settings” and “Device Health”.
5. Tap on “Change Network”, and continue.
6. Choose a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi to connect with.
7. Insert the password and wait to connect.

Note: WiFi passwords are case-sensitive, so if unknown, check the router’s label and ensure your doorbell stays online and active.

2. Enable the Motion Detection

If your Ring Doorbell is online, but you’re not receiving any notifications from the Ring app, the issue might be with Motion Detection.

This feature must be active for your device to detect and record motion events.

Without it, your doorbell won’t alert you to activity. Let’s fix that by ensuring Motion Detection is enabled.

Here’s how to access the feature:

1. Open the Ring app dashboard.
2. Tap three dots on your unit.
3. Select the “Settings” option.
4. Turn “Motion Detection” on.

Once the Motion Detection is turned on, your Ring device will start capturing motion events and sending notifications.

Adjust this setting anytime to match your needs and keep your doorbell working as expected.

3. Adjust the Motion Sensitivity

Many people who wondered why the Ring doorbell is not notifying me of motion figured it out and resolved the issue by increasing the motion sensitivity.

This setting controls how easily your device detects movement.

The option is found in the Ring app under “Motion Settings”, and it uses a slider with “MIN” and “MAX” labels.

So, if it’s set too close to MIN, subtle motions, like someone walking up, may not trigger an alert, hence, no notification will be sent.

Therefore, increasing the sensitivity towards the MAX might resolve your problem.

How to Adjust Ring Doorbell Sensitivity?

The “Motion Settings” menu includes a slider for fine-tuning sensitivity. There’s a small line just before MAX, marking a sweet spot.

Dragging the slider past this line, to about 80%, is a good balance between catching more motion and avoiding constant alerts. 

Here’s how to increase the Ring doorbell sensitivity:

1. Go to the “Motion Settings” section.
2. Drag the sensitivity slider to the right.
3. Then, set the slider to around 75–80%.
4. Save changes to apply and then test.

At around 75%, the doorbell sensor is sensitive enough to detect most activity without buzzing your phone for every cat, car, or leaf falling down.

So, test it out after adjusting by walking in front of the Ring doorbell.

4. Configure your Motion Zones

Sometimes, your Ring Doorbell is online and the Motion Detection is enabled, but you are still not getting notifications. The culprit could be your Motion Zones.

These settings let you focus on specific areas for motion detection, which is great for avoiding alerts from passing cars and weather/wind moving things.

When the zones are set to monitor the wrong spots, like an empty corner instead of your front path, you won’t get the notifications you expect.

Adjusting Motion Zones can solve this by targeting the areas that matter most to you and avoiding areas you don’t want to monitor.

How to Add a Motion Zone:

If your device isn’t watching the right areas, adding a new Motion Zone can help. You can set up to three zones per device to cover different spots.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Ring app dashboard.
2. Press three dots on the device.
3. Select the “Settings” option.
4. Tap the “Motion Settings” tab.
5. Press “Camera Motion Zones”.
6. Now, tap the “Add Zone” button.
7. Drag the points to set boundaries.
8. Finally, tap on “Save” to confirm.

In a nutshell, this allows you to draw a custom area, like your porch or walkway, where you want motion tracked.

If notifications still aren’t coming, check that the zone includes where the activity often happens.

How to Edit a Motion Zone:

If you already have zones but they’re not working, editing them might solve the problem with the missing notifications.

Maybe the current setup excludes the spot where people walk, hence no motion is captured.

Here’s how to adjust your motion zones:

1. Head to the “Motion Settings” tab.
2. Then, tap the “Edit Zones” option.
3. Choose a specific “Zone” to adjust.
4. Drag points to reshape boundaries.
5. Finally, press “Save” to update it.

Well, redrawing zones to cover high-traffic areas can bring your notifications back!

How to Optimize Motion Zone:

Sometimes, to get the most relevant notifications from your motion zones, you’ll need to tweak them a bit with a strategy in mind.

Here are some tips and tricks:

• Clear the view: Trim branches or reposition the camera to avoid triggers from trees, shadows, or sunlight, since any reflections from nearby surfaces can also impact the detection.
• Focus on traffic: Ring devices detect motion up to 30 feet, but big objects like cars can trigger alerts from farther away, so adjust the detection zones to skip busy roads.
• Skip dead zones: Redraw zones to ignore areas like locked gates or walls where no one walks, and focus on paths people use.
• Use Advanced Detection: For battery-powered devices, this feature might be off by default, so you can turn it on in Motion Settings → Motion Zones and improve accuracy.

Quick Tip: When you’re ready with adjusting the zones, walk in front of your doorbell to check whether you will receive a notification from your Ring app.

5. Configure the Doorbell Mode

If your Ring Doorbell isn’t sending motion notifications consistently, the issue might be its “Mode” settings.

The Ring app uses Disarmed, Home, and Away modes to control the doorbell’s actions.

In some Modes, the doorbell might not notify you, or may not record motion entirely, especially if there is a misconfiguration.  

Here’s how to configure your Ring Doorbell modes:

1. Open your app, and go to the dashboard.
2. Tap three dots, and select your doorbell.
3. Go to “Settings” and tap “Mode Settings”.
4. Enable the “Modes” and adjust Disarmed.
5. Set the doorbell to record when “Disarmed”.
6. Save, then also configure the “Home Mode”.
7. Set the doorbell to record if you are “Home”.
8. Save, then also configure the “Away Mode”.
9. Set the doorbell to record if you are “Away”.
10. Save to finalize all changes, and lastly, test.

Setting your doorbell to record motion in Disarmed, Home, and Away Modes keeps it active everywhere.

The doorbell uses your phone location to tell whether you are at home or not; hence, when you configure the modes to capture motion regardless of whether you’re home or away, notifications will come through. 

Note: You will need a Ring subscription to adjust these and ensure notifications always come through!

6. Enable Ring App’s Notifications

So, your Ring Doorbell might be recording motion perfectly, but if the notifications aren’t reaching you, the problem could be your phone.

Even when the doorbell is working, your device might block Ring app alerts due to its settings, so whether you’re on Android or iOS, adjusting your notifications settings may help you.

Steps for Android:

1. First, head to the Settings app on your Android.
2. Next, go to Notifications → App notifications.
3. Find the Ring application under “Recent Apps”.
4. Tap the Ring app, and toggle notifications “ON”.

Steps for iPhones:

1. Open the Settings and scroll down to “Apps”.
2. Find and tap the Ring application in the menu list.
3. Tap Notifications, toggle Allow Notifications.

Once you tweak these settings, your phone will stop blocking Ring notifications.

Test it by triggering motion by walking in front of your doorbell. 

7. Reinstall the Ring Application

If your Ring Doorbell is detecting motion but notifications still aren’t coming through, the app itself might be glitching.

Reinstalling the Ring app can clear out any bugs or corrupted data blocking the notifications if you’ve disallowed some permissions during the app installation.

Android: Reinstall from Google Play

For Android users, uninstalling and reinstalling the Ring app is straightforward via the Google Play Store:

1. First, open the Google Play Store app.
2. Tap on your Profile at the top right.
3. Select Manage apps and devices.
4. Find the Ring application and tap it.
5. Choose “Uninstall” and then confirm. 
6. Search for the Ring to reinstall it cleanly.

iOS: Reinstall from Home Screen

On iOS, you can remove the Ring app directly from the home screen and get it back from the App Store:

1. Tap and hold the Ring app icon.
2. Press the “Remove App” option.
3. Choose “Delete App” to confirm.
4. Get the app back from the store.

Important: Allow All Permissions!

After reinstalling and logging in, the Ring app will request permissions. Choose “Allow” on every pop-up, including notifications and location access.

These are critical since the notifications will not work without permission, while the location access helps the application understand whether you’re at home or away.

8. Reset and Initialize the Doorbell

If you’ve tried everything and are still wondering why is my Ring is not notifying you of motion, the issue may be on the software level with your device.

Hence, the next step is to factory reset your Ring doorbell and set up the device through the Ring application from scratch.

Warning: The factory reset will permanently erase ALL settings!

Here’s how to factory reset the Ring doorbell in easy steps:

1. Find the orange button (Ring 1) back.
2. Or find a black button (Ring 2) front.
3. Tap and hold the button for ~15 seconds.
4. Release the button after the time ends.
5. When the light flashes, the reset starts.
6. Wait until the lights completely turn off.

Resetting your Ring Doorbell wipes out any glitches, restoring it to factory settings. Once the light stops flashing, set it up again in the app.

Don’t forget to adjust your motion sensitivity, detection zones, and doorbell modes before testing the motion detection.

Note: If your Ring doorbell is still not sending you any notifications, get in touch with Ring customer service for additional assistance.