Ring cameras are great for protecting your property or just keeping an eye on things so you don’t have to go outside regularly. But these motion alerts can be used for so much more with Smart Alerts, a relatively new feature available on supported Ring cameras.
Before we begin, it’s important to know that most Ring cameras support Smart Alerts, but only the best Ring doorbells do (opens in new tab) support separate package alerts feature. This list includes:
- Video Doorbell (2nd Generation)
- video doorbell 2
- Wired video doorbell
- Video Doorbell Pro
- Video Doorbell Pro 2
- Video doorbell 3
- Video Doorbell 3 Plus
- Video doorbell 4
- Video doorbell Elite
If you’re the lucky owner of one of the above devices, the next step is to make sure you have an active Ring Protect subscription (opens in new tab) to plan. If you don’t currently have a subscription but want to use the packet detection feature, it will only cost you $3 per month to get packet detection and 60 days of video storage.
As a bonus, you can add up to four cameras to this basic plan and enjoy both cloud storage and advanced motion alerts. It is well worth the cost.
Once you’ve created a Ring Protect plan, go to the Ring app and follow these instructions to enable packet notifications on your Ring Video Doorbell.
- open that ring app.
- Tap the Settings icon next to your video doorbell on the main screen. It looks like a gear.
- Tap the motion settings Possibility. On some Ring cameras, this may be called this 3D motion detection.
- Choose Smart Notifications from the next screen.
- Scroll down to package section and select the video icon to enable packet detection.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to set up yours packet detection zone. All packs placed in this zone are eligible to generate a pack notification from the Ring app.
If you find that you’re getting too many false positives — or the camera isn’t properly detecting packets that are in the packet zone — you should adjust the “Packet Sensitivity” setting in the Smart Notifications section of the Ring app.
When setting up a packet zone, make sure the zone is placed on the floor and not in the air. Here is an example:
Once you’ve enabled and configured packet notifications, you’ll receive more specific notifications when your cameras detect motion. When a packet is detected in the configured zone — which is separate from your regular motion detection zones — you’ll receive a notification from the Ring app stating that a packet was detected, instead of the default “Motion was detected” notification.
You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on a new video doorbell. Ring Video Doorbell Wired sells for a lot less than most and only requires the wire from your old doorbell to make it work.
