Ring doorbell vs Ubiquiti Dream Router - which is the culprit?

[Adsibob]

The ubiquiti setup we have at home seems to be working very well for everything else, so I’m pretty sure the answer to my question is: the Ring wifi doorbell is absolute crap, but thought I’d share here in case anybody had similar experience.

 

 Below is a a floor plan showing the front of my ground floor. The “R” is the position of the Ubiquiti Dream Router. It is perched up on a windowsill which is about 1m or possibly 105cm up from the floor level. It isn’t touching the glass, but it’s fairly close. We have double glazed aluminium windows. Very thin aluminium profiles. The wall that window is in is a solid double thickness brick wall (no cavity) original from the 1930s. We’ve added about 40mm of EWI, with a Ceresit finish coat. Internally, we had to put in a breathable vapour membrane, which I recall looked a bit foil like, and there was also a metal frame built to create a gap before the plasterboard. So maybe it’s acting like a Faraday cage.

 

In the bottom right hand corner of the drawing you can see part of our porch. The little purple mark, represents the location of our doorbell, which is about 1.2m from the ground. It is mounted on the corner/junction of where the wall meets our front door. Our front door is made of steel and double glazed panels. So maybe that too is acting as a faraday cage. Here, the wall is brand new;  in addition to being a double brick cavity wall, it also has the EWI (though no internal foil membrane and no internal metalwork). The porch was a recent addition, hence why it’s built better.

 

As you can see from the scale, the distance between the Router and the doorbell is no more than a mere 4m. Despite this, the doorbell consistently reports “very poor wifi signal”. Video stream is usually fine, but audio is pretty bad, particularly if using the app on 4G when away from the house. It is virtually impossible to speak to someone at the door on the app, when I’m away from the house. 
 

I’m running a separate 2.4ghz wifi network just for the doorbell, a firestick and a couple of other IoT devices. Here is the data my Unifi app is reporting for the wifi connection between the UDR and the Ring doorbell:

Was hoping someone could give me some advice please.

[Adsibob]

I’m impatient, I know, but wondered if somebody might be able to weigh in on this. Maybe a fellow ubiquiti user such as @Dan F, @Wil, @Rob99, @Dreadnaught, @Thorfun, @vala, @joth or @JonJump also owns a ring device that they have mounted outdoors?

[Dreadnaught]

The foil you mention sounds like a likely culprit of the poor signal. In an Amazon review of a foil breather membrane someone commented on losing their Wifi signal once they had it installed.

 

Signal of -68 dB is poor for 4-meters. You have mentioned the possibility that metal objects may cause interference. Alternatively, are there any devices in the vicinity that can cause interference at 2.4 Ghz frequency: microwave oven, old fridge, baby monitor, a neighbour using the same WiFi band as you?

 

Do you have other Access Points (APs) in the house? Are you sure that the Ring doorbell is connecting to the Ubiquiti Dream Router and not another AP, which might be further away? This shouldn't happen but you never know. 

 

(I don't have any Ring products so can't comment on those.)

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Dreadnaught said:

The foil you mention sounds like a likely culprit of the poor signal. In an Amazon review of a foil breather membrane someone commented on losing their Wifi signal once they had it installed.

Thanks @Dreadnaught.

 

Yes, I think the foil membrane must be a major issue here. We had damp on the wall and this was part of the solution a RICS surveyor recommended. Seems to have worked well in that it is allowing the damp to dry out without affecting our plaster, but I just didn’t factor in the potential affects on wifi. Just didn’t even consider it.

1 hour ago, Dreadnaught said:

 

Signal of -68 dB is poor for 4-meters. You have mentioned the possibility that metal objects may cause interference. Alternatively, are there any devices in the vicinity that can cause interference at 2.4 Ghz frequency: microwave oven, old fridge, baby monitor, a neighbour using the same WiFi band as you?

No, the only other items nearby with radio waves are some hue bulbs, but even with those switched off the problem persists. Incidentally the hue hub is right by the Dream Machine and although the external bulbs do connect to it, there was one that struggled, so maybe the fill in the wall is also contributing to that.

1 hour ago, Dreadnaught said:

 

Do you have other Access Points (APs) in the house? Are you sure that the Ring doorbell is connecting to the Ubiquiti Dream Router and not another AP, which might be further away? This shouldn't happen but you never know. 

 

in addition to the UDR I have two Ubiquiti in wall APs, but they are on the upper floors and checking the topology of my network on the Unifi app, I’m sure they are not the issue. So I guess it’s the foil. I think I have two options to fix this then:

 

1) Replace the doorbell with the much more expensive PoE version and then:

(a) lay Ethernet internally to the location of the doorbell and drill through - this will require about 2m of wall chasing and replastering and repainting a bit of wall; or

(b) instead of relying on Ethernet, use a power line plug to make use of a 13A socket that is conveniently located very close to the doorbell (on inside of the wall) so will save a lot of chasing, plastering and painting. I will still need to do some, but more like 40cm worth rather than 2m worth.

 

2) drill through near the router and install an external AP pointed at the doorbell. Seems like a stupid and expensive way of fixing this, but the problem with option 1(a) and 1(b) is that a ring PoE doorbell is stupidly expensive, so it may actually be cheaper to buy an external ubiquiti AP. They are pretty ugly though, and the front of my house looks so nice!

[Canski]

I had a ring doorbell in my last house with 9 inch brick walls but the router was about 3 m from the doorbell and the only obstacle was old double glazing. I had a really bad signal on it and after speaking to the technical team several times I eventually gave up with it.  

[Adsibob]

7 minutes ago, Canski said:

I had a ring doorbell in my last house with 9 inch brick walls but the router was about 3 m from the doorbell and the only obstacle was old double glazing. I had a really bad signal on it and after speaking to the technical team several times I eventually gave up with it.  

Hmmm, this doesn’tbode well. Did you replace it with a different smart doorbell or just give up on the concept altogether.

[Canski]

I moved it with me. It’s not as bad here but still not perfect. In fact the router is more shielded at this house. 

[Kelvin]

To rule the foil out just bring the doorbell inside (assuming it can be battery powered) to the same room as the router. 

[Adsibob]

42 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

To rule the foil out just bring the doorbell inside (assuming it can be battery powered) to the same room as the router. 

That would be good except that it is wired in. I guess I could run an additional cable from the transformer inside.

[Kelvin]

I see. If you can try that to rule the foil in or out. 

[Temp]

Perhaps check this..

 

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-gb/articles/218144403-In-app-setup-failing-due-to-router-or-modem-issues

 

Quote

"Ring products can only connect to channels 1-11 on a 2.4 Ghz network"

 

UK Routers can use other channels, perhaps check which yours us using. Edit: I see it's on 11 so should be OK.

 

Apparently that's not the whole story. I recall reading something about the presence of a 5GHz connection causing issues. You might try turning off the 5GHz band in the router temporarily to see if that improves things.

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Temp

[Temp]

Perhaps also..

 

https://community.ui.com/questions/SOLVED-Ring-Doorbell-Connectivity-Issues-to-Unifi/ea902167-d95b-4ac7-b2e3-48baf6498602

 

Quote

Then I noticed a comment that the Ring can have issues with wireless networks that have multiple APs. 

 

If I've understood correctly the solution is to set up the nearest AP/Router to create a network SSID just for the doorbell. If the SSID doesn't exist on other AP that should force it to connet to the nearest one.

 

[Radian]

You say you have an internal foil like layer but what about the EWI? Has that also got a foil layer or two? And your glazing - low E? The coating is metallic. All this makes a superb Faraday cage. Get a WiFi signal checker app on your phone and wander outside with it. 

[Wil]

I have a EZ-VIZ doorbell (and a couple of Shelly 1’s to control my gate) in direct line of sight, outdoors, about 40m from my nearest AP (a UniFi LR disc). It’s constantly reporting cr4p signal and it regularly goes offline if it rains. If I could hardwire it, I would every time.

 

I just think the design of the doorbells compromises the antennae and most are designed for distances like yours, within the coverage of a single Wifi network.

 

Sorry that doesn’t help much, but until you’ve experimented by moving the UDR  to the inside of the door (probably easier than moving the doorbell?) then it’s going to be hard to identify the culprit for interference.

[AliG]

We have Ubiquiti today and had a Ring doorbell in our last house. My parents' new house will have both.

 

You have a couple of issues. Block walls and double glazing reduce wireless signals considerably. I recently put a router right up against the wall in the kitchen to get a signal directly outside. The signal was intermittent from a router in the middle of the kitchen ceiling despite being through just one block wall with foil backed insulation or triple glazed french doors. It is OK now, but runs at a fraction of the speed it runs at in the house. Simply opening the doors makes a massive difference to the signal. When the house was being built the 3/4G signal became pretty much unusable inside as soon as the windows were put in. Triple glazed windows seem almost as bad as walls from a wireless signal perspective.

 

The second issue is that Ring's have quite poor WiFi reception. In our last house which was timber framed and with much thinner walls and windows, we just got a signal outside the front door despite it being only a few metres from the router.

 

In my previous house where we did not have Ubiquiti I reckon that WiFi speed pretty much halved with every wall/floor that the signal passed through, even just stud walls.

 

Compounding things though is the positioning of the router and Ring. The signal will travel pretty much in a straight line in all directions from the router. You have a wall directly along that line. The signal would have to pass through over 1M of wall. Can you get a long ethernet cable and move the router around to see where it would work better. On the thinner bit of the wall at the top of the porch looking at the screen might work better, otherwise actually in the hall and passing through the door would probably work better. You want the line of  sight between them to have the least amount of material in it.

 

Knowing this issue, I have purchased a wired Ring for my parents' house which is absurdly more expensive than the WiFi one. (Got a discounted one on Ebay). Theother thing is there is quite a bit of latency in the wireless one, so it can be a few seconds before it rings on your phone and people think there is no one home if you aren't quick to answer.

 

 

[jayc89]

Have you thought about using a Ring Chime as a wireless extender?

We have a Ring Doorbell, at the front door, which is approx. 7m from our router. We also have a Ring Floodlight on the garage, which is approx 22m from the router in the opposite direction.

 

The Floodlight wouldn't connect to our router, so I bought a Ring Chime Pro and plugged it in near the back door (approx 18m from the Floodlight), which works fine, interestingly, the Doorbell also chooses to connect via the Chime Pro which is approx 11m away from it, rather than the router which is nearer...

[Adsibob]

On 20/08/2022 at 22:31, Temp said:

Perhaps check this..

 

https://support.ring.com/hc/en-gb/articles/218144403-In-app-setup-failing-due-to-router-or-modem-issues

 

 

UK Routers can use other channels, perhaps check which yours us using. Edit: I see it's on 11 so should be OK.

 

Apparently that's not the whole story. I recall reading something about the presence of a 5GHz connection causing issues. You might try turning off the 5GHz band in the router temporarily to see if that improves things.

 

 

The problem with this approach is that I’m not willing to lose the benefits of the 5Ghz network for my high use devices such as phones and tablets.

[Adsibob]

So after messing around with a wifi scanner app and trying various things, only to discover that the best my doorbell can manage is a connection that varies between -68 dBm and -72dBm and latency that was 102ms, I have admitted defeat and accepted that to have a better doorbell connection I will have to spend some money on a PoE one. The decision was made a lot easier by the fact that my BRILLIANT electrician had chosen (without my knowledge) to use CAT5E cable to take power from the ring transformer in our fuse box to the doorbell, so happily there is already Ethernet cable imbedded in the wall, meaning no plasterwork and paintwork needed to be ruined. The challenge was getting some cable from the closest  existing Ethernet point to the fuse box. But my sparky is a an actual magician. I simply do not know how he did it. He created a small hole in the wall 3m high up and managed to drop down some cable, connect that to the Ethernet port 2.2m below, then take the cable through the wall, under the stairs, over a under stair WC, and then pop it through another wall to come out in this tiny 9mm gap between the wall and some floor tiles, that we were fortunate not to have finished yet. So the ONLY visible bit of cable is from that point, 1.25m up to the fuse box, but that is all going to be covered up when the coats wardrobe gets built.

 

 Now to decide whether I ditch the ring system completely and go with a different PoE doorbell, or spend the fortune that Ring is asking for.

[Adsibob]

On 22/08/2022 at 10:49, AliG said:

Knowing this issue, I have purchased a wired Ring for my parents' house

How are your parents getting on with the PoE version?

Edited September 3, 2022 by Adsibob

[AliG]

The cabling is in, but the house isn't finished yet.

 

However, I plugged it into our router and it worked just fine.

 

The £350 list price of the PoE Ring is absurd, I don't see why it is so much more expensive than the other Ring bells.

 

I got an open box one on eBay for £150. Cheapest there seems to be £235 at the moment.