Custom Event Alerts is a new feature for Ring Protect subscribers, which allows the Ring Spotlight Cam Battery to identify when an object is in a specific state in the camera’s field-of-view.
Your camera won't know what the objects are, but it can learn the difference between two states, such as present and absent, or open and closed (e.g. whether there’s a car on your property or not). Using computer vision, your camera identifies one of these defined states and sends you alerts based on your preferences.
Note: Custom Event Alerts can tell whether a defined area is in one of two states you set up. By design, these alerts are most reliable with solid objects that look similar every time they are in one of these states. For instance, your garage door looks largely the same whenever it is closed.
Custom Events are not intended for emergency or safety use. See best practices below for details.
To use Custom Event Alerts, you’ll need a Ring Spotlight Cam Battery and a Ring Protect subscription plan. Please note, Custom Event Alerts are being rolled out to users at different times. If you don’t see Custom Event Alerts and your Ring app is up-to-date, it is not yet available to you. Please check back as it should be available soon.
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How to create a Custom Event
- Open the Ring mobile app.
- Go to Devices and select Spotlight Cam Battery.
- Select Motion Settings, then select Smart Alerts.
- Go to the bottom of the page and select Create a Custom Event.
- For cars, make sure there are no other cars or objects, such as trash bins, in the event zone.
- For garage doors, make sure there are no cars in the event zone.
- Follow the on-screen prompts to finish setting up.
To learn about other Smart Alerts, see this article.
If you connect your Ring Spotlight Cam Battery to a new wifi network, your Custom Event Alert will be deleted and you’ll no longer receive a Custom Event Alert. You can create a Custom Event Alert again in the ring mobile app. There’s no way to recover the Custom Event Alert once it is deleted.
Best practices for setting up a Custom Event
- Custom Events are not intended for emergency or safety use. Custom Events may be negatively affected by weather changes, wifi connectivity, battery power, and other factors. The feature quality also depends on how accurate the snapshots are. Therefore, in some cases, it might work with a delay or not detect the change in state.
- Make sure there are no people or faces in your camera’s field-of-view. If there’s a person or face in the field-of-view, the feature setup will fail. To know if someone is on your property, you can enable Person Alerts in motion settings.
- Always use Privacy Zones if your neighbor’s property appears in your camera’s field-of-view. When enabled, the Ring app won't display anything in that zone when using Live View, and that area won't be video recorded.
Give us your feedback
To share your experience using Custom Event Alerts with the Ring team, contact us here.
