Ring doorbell. One problem after another, all appear to be software related.

The latest: The desktop app behaved differently this morning. I had not made any changes, so I was surprised when it wanted me to log in, that is new and different behavior. Then, all attempts at login failed, with an error message: "Invalid Credentials."

Weird, because same UserID and password, that I have been using for quite a while. work just fine on the iPhone iOS app and also via their web portal -- it's just the desktop app that is behaving strangely.

Basic troubleshooting procedures: Change password. No help, same problem.

Trash the desktop app and re-download. No help, same problem.

Try Help -> Contact Us -> Chat. TWO HOUR WAIT QUEUE! (That should have given me a hint).

Went about other business, poured drain cleaner in shower drain, did Other Useful Stuff, had lunch, tried chat again, only an eleven minute wait this time, so perused SIGforum for eleven minutes.

Chat guy said new software on their end locked out all Mac desktop app users. iPhone and Android were not affected, nor were Windows users, nor web portal users -- just Mac users. That was consistent with what I was seeing.

How in the world do they do stuff like this? When I was a software developer at Bell Labs, if we had done something like this and it had been released in NYC, millions of individuals and businesses would have been without phone service. How can the decide to release software without adequate testing? What do they do, farm this out to the low bidder in some third world shit hole?

UPDATE: Shower drain is now good, had lunch, checked back, Mac desktop app is now working. Ring has still not solved the problem of forty seconds of black screen instead of actual video for motion detect events, that occurs between 30% and 50% of the time.

They are testing the software. On you. As a Mac user, Ring just lost me as a potential customer because of your experience, and I was looking. Perhaps I'll send them an email.

quote:

Ring has still not solved the problem of forty seconds of black screen instead of actual video for motion detect events, that occurs between 30% and 50% of the time.

That's a common problem Ring claims it's network issues with speed, connection, wall type.

I say it's cheap as shit internals in the ring as it relates to network components, If I can stand on the front porch and get full signal from wifi on my phone and the the ring gets 50% signal it's the Ring.

It's supposed to alert you when people hit the monitor zone you set, mine never does, I get the doorbell ring then the proximity notice, yet it will send false motion alerts when a gnat flys by and farts.

JMO it's a halfass design.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Ring has still not solved the problem of forty seconds of black screen instead of actual video for motion detect events, that occurs between 30% and 50% of the time.

That's a common problem Ring claims it's network issues with speed, connection, wall type.

I say it's cheap as shit internals in the ring as it relates to network components, If I can stand on the front porch and get full signal from wifi on my phone and the the ring gets 50% signal it's the Ring.

It's supposed to alert you when people hit the monitor zone you set, mine never does, I get the doorbell ring then the proximity notice, yet it will send false motion alerts when a gnat flys by and farts.

JMO it's a halfass design.

Yeah, I was not a happy camper when I finally got connected to a Ring person via chat. He pretended to be surprised at my report of black screen when there should have been video. I asked him if he knew how to use Google (nah, I'm not a smart-ass), and suggested that it would only take him a few minutes to find HUNDREDS of people who were reporting the same problem.

Yeah well, when you were with Bell Labs, you were working for a company that was fixated with 99.9% reliability. Having 99% just wasn’t good enough and 98% was a disaster. Sadly, nobody strives for that anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by jbcummings:
Yeah well, when you were with Bell Labs, you were working for a company that was fixated with 99.9% reliability. Having 99% just wasn’t good enough and 98% was a disaster. Sadly, nobody strives for that anymore.

True. At the time I joined them, the service life of a Central Office Telephone Switching System was defined as forty years.

The design goal was a total cumulative down time, over that forty year life, not to exceed two hours.

I just sent my first ring back as it was dead after 2 days.

It triggered when I left the house, but didn't when my wife left a few minutes later. Contacted tech support after I tried everything. They walked me through trying everything again, but it seemed that the internal radio went kaput.

They're offering me a free year of video storage if I give it another shot, but I'm leery.

It’s the way of the world I think unfortunately. Gun manufacturers seem to beta test their products on unwitting customers more and more too.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
How in the world do they do stuff like this? When I was a software developer at Bell Labs, if we had done something like this and it had been released in NYC, millions of individuals and businesses would have been without phone service. How can the decide to release software without adequate testing?

Short answer is, the world changed when the correction of releasing erroneous software became just 're-download and re-install'.

In the old days, fixes involved shipments of physical discs, removal of ROMs, visits by techs, replacement of inventory in the channel, etc. Big costs, hits to earnings.

Now, it's a quick note on the website, maybe a push notification on the 'help' part of the software itself or an email blast to registered users, and some download traffic on the server.

That's all to the good, from the ten-thousand-foot perspective. Faster, cheaper, easier fixes? What's not to like? But it also means that the urgency to release no longer drives the fanatical attention to detail that it used to in the QA departments. "If you find something later, can't we just patch it then?"