Ring Stick Up Solar Cam

Ring Stick Up Cam Not Recognizing Solar Panel: Troubleshooting

The above reasons listed are some of the more common ones. As far as reading the wrong message, its worth mentioning that many customers are confused when they see the message, add a solar panel, when the solar panel has already been installed.

The thing is, thats just an advert, albeit one that Ring should remove and display elsewhere, because its confusing to those who have just added their solar panel. Its just Ring trying to get you to purchase a new solar panel, and its not an indication that yours isnt working. With that said, the following are a few troubleshooting steps you can try if there is a technical issue involved.

Improvements Wed Like To See

If there were any improvements to the camera wed like to see in future models colour night vision like the Arlo Pro 3 would be nice. A stronger speaker would also be good if they can cram it into the small housing and still keep it at least IP 68 water-resistant.

The other small annoyance was its lack of flexibility regarding how it is mounted. If you are using it upright on a table, stand or similar then no problem. Likewise, if you are using it screwed to a wall its ready to go but if you are needing to hang it from the ceiling then you need a special mount which is extra.

This could be solved by allowing the software to reverse the camera view if you slip the camera upsidedown but instead, you can only mount the camera upright, so the special bracket is needed.

Not a big deal but just remember if you are mounting it to the ceiling or want to mount it under a soffit youll need the extra bracket.

Increasing the field of motion zones to include height would be good.

Ring Stick Up Cam Review: Ring’s Solar

Despite its neat solar panel accessory, Ring’s Stick Up Cam has fewer features than our favorite DIY security cameras.

Megan Wollerton

Senior Writer/Editor

Megan Wollerton has covered technology for CNET since 2013. Before that, she wrote for NBC’s Dvice.com . Megan has a master’s degree from the University of Louisville and a bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College, both in international relations. She is a board member of the Louisville chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. When Megan isn’t writing, she’s planning far-flung adventures.

Editor’s note : Amazon, which acquired Ring in February 2018, announced a second generation Ring Stick Up Cam that ships to customers on October 14th, 2018.

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Works With Ring Security Cameras

Do more with your Security Camera and connect it to an array of compatible devices to help create a smarter, secure home.

Connect Your Ring of Security

Link Security Cameras and all your Ring devices to the Ring App to make your security work better together, so you can control them all from your phone or tablet.

Alexa, show me my camera.

Enjoy hands-free home monitoring with select Alexa-enabled devices, so you can hear custom notifications from Echo Dot, launch video with Echo Show and more.

Open Doors Right From the App

See whos there with Security Cameras, and open doors for friends and family right from the Ring App with select smart door locks like Schlage Encode.2

Ring Indoor Cloud Storage

In most security camera packages today, you get to choose how you want to store your footage. With Ring, options are simple: insert a micro SD card, or opt for one of Ring Protects subscriptions to store video on the cloud.

Unlike traditional security companies that require annual service agreements, Ring doesnt require you to sign a contract. You can subscribe to a plan in order to save video and record activity, much like the way Arlos cameras worked in our full Arlo camera analysis. This model is becoming the standard in the industry, and we think youll appreciate the convenience and flexibility here.

You are, however, very limited in what you can do without a subscription, so we tend to recommend going with at least the Basic subscription plan if you have one or two cameras, and the Ring Protect Plus plan if you have three or more.

We already had the Ring Protect Plus plan for our four other Ring cameras, and we were able to seamlessly incorporate our Stick Up Cam into our existing plan. This flexibility is a key reason so many people become Ring loyalists.

Ring Protect Plus Plan

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Rings New Indoor/outdoor Stick Up Camera Delivers Diy Security With Ease

DIY Home security is a huge growing trend. The ability to have a wireless security camera that sends you notifications to your phone and allows for 2 way audio, lets you trigger an alarm or simply store a record of activity as video in the cloud is a huge step forward in the last decade of home security.

> You can see our review of all the available solar powered outdoor wireless security cameras here.<

After reviewing all the available solar-powered wireless security cameras weve landed on the New Ring Stick Up Camera in the Amazon Ring range of home security devices.

So, why did we pick it, how does it perform and is it worth it?

Ring Solar Panel For Spotlight Cam Battery And Stick Up Cam

A few hours of sunlight everyday will keep your Spotlight Cam Battery or Stick Up Cam Battery charged around the clock, so youll never run out of power. With an included tool kit and cable, youll be set up in just a few minutes.

• Weather-resistant design
• Only works with Spotlight Cam Battery / Stick Up Cam Battery

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Ensure The Devices Arent Affected By Moisture Or Debris

This is a battery-powered device, after all, so theres always a weather factor involved. If youre installing the solar panel in the winter, you want to make sure that the batteries are properly charged first and charge them indoors if possible before installing the solar panel:

The Stick Up Cam may not connect immediately until the Ring Solar Panel has had some time to gather energy in direct sunlight.

New Stick Up Camera Unboxing Video

To summarise in advance of all the detail its fair to say this new Ring Stick Up Camera with Solar panel works as described, which is to say it works great. The solar charges more than enough, the picture quality is great and the app does the business. But there are a couple of things wed like to see improved in the next model.

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Ensure The Ring Stick Up Cam Is Installed Correctly

For the solar panel to work correctly, it must be installed correctly. If yours isnt working, its worth retreating your steps back to the beginning to see if you installed anything the wrong way.

Since youre troubleshooting, odds are that youve already chosen where you want to install the Ring Solar Panel, so theres no sense in backtracking that far.

Its a really simple installation process, but you want to ensure that the ring barrel plug is correctly inserted into the charging port on the Ring Stick Up Cam and gives the solar panel some time to charge.

Unboxing Our Stick Up Cam

Ring Stick Up Cam Battery Packaging

As we already have five Ring cameras installed, we were excited to see how our Stick Up Cam Rings most versatile camera and one of the easiest to install would help us round out that so-called Ring of Security the brand is famous for.

We decided, for starters, to give this camera the stairway treatment. Theres a lot of traveling that goes on in this area of our home with two middle-school-age kids and one very active puppy, we knew wed see plenty of activity from this vantage point.

So we powered on our camera, added it as a new device to the app, and used our smartphone to scan the QR code on the back of our camera. Then, we followed the prompts, which included waiting a few minutes for the firmware to update, then watched as the camera synced to our smartphones. The whole thing took all of five minutes, and just like that, we were in business.

Ring Setup in App

Now, it was time to see how our new cam would fare in everyday household scenarios. For instance, why does our dog regularly wake up at least once in the middle of the night, go downstairs, and return hours later? Where does he go? What mischief is he getting into?

Ring Stick Up Cam compared to Ring Indoor Cam

To solve our everyday household mysteries, we decided to position our Stick Up Cam on a shelf above our stairway landing. To do this, we first removed the rechargeable battery from the box and plugged it into our wall, via the included charging cable.

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Our Experience With Stick Up Cam

First, a word of advice: You do not need technical expertise to use a Ring camera. That ease of use is exactly whats made the brand a powerhouse in the industry for so long.

Ring Stick Up Cam

We do, however, recommend spending some time getting to know Rings app once youve synced it with your camera to understand all the functions and features. We do this with every camera, even if were already familiar with the app. Otherwise, we feel like we wouldnt really be harnessing the full potential of some of the best cameras were reviewing.

For our testing of the Stick Up Cam, we decided to turn to our original Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Well also touch on how the Ring Stick Up Cam can help to keep service providers honest you know, nannies and contractors that you might welcome into your home. And how it can capture burglars in the act. But as they say, first things first!

On the first night, things stayed quiet. But on the second night, after moving the camera to another spot, we recorded motion indicating that the dog, our 10-pound poodle mix with a powerful set of lungs and a serious Napoleon complex, was embarking on his nightly trek.

And this time, we saw what happened when he reached his destination.

Weve located the suspect, in the lower-right corner.

Aha! Caught ya! And yes, its exactly what it looks like hes relieving himself on our office carpet!

Ring App Dashboard Night Vision

Comparing Outdoor Security Cameras

While the Stick Up Cam’s specs may look roughly comparable to other outdoor security cameras, it falls short in a couple of key ways. First, you have to pay for cloud storage. While select DIY security companies do charge a monthly or yearly fee for cloud storage, more and more brands are offering some sort of free option.

Netgear’s Arlo and Arlo Pro cameras, Canary’s Flex and Nest Cam Outdoor all offer free cloud video clips or photos of activity, with the option of upgrading to a paid subscription as needed. Ring charges customers $3 per month or $30 per year for its event-based cloud service. $30 isn’t a ton of money to spend, but I wish Ring could somehow include customers who either don’t need or don’t want to pay for six months of storage.

Second, the Stick Up Cam’s 80-degree field of view is pretty narrow. The competition ranges from 110 to 130 degrees, which can make a significant difference in how much of your front yard, driveway or back yard the camera is able to see.

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Why Does The Ring Stick Up Cam Not Recognize My Solar Panel

Nothing can be more frustrating than a faulty electronic, especially if you just received your new solar panel and, like a kid with a new toy, are ready to hook it up and start using solar energy to power your security system.

Weve all been there, and part of the drawback of sophisticated home security tech is that it is just that, sophisticated. It doesnt always want to play nice, but its almost a certainty that its not broken as soon as you open the package.

There are a host of reasons your Ring Stick Up Cam doesnt recognize your Ring Solar Panel:

• The Ring Stick Up Cam needs to be reset
• The Ring Solar Panel wasnt installed correctly
• Youre reading the wrong message
• The Stick Up Cam needs to be updated
• The Stick Up Cam requires a full, factory reset

Ring Stick Up Cam Battery Features

The Stick Up Cam is very slightly bigger than its indoor cousin, measuring 3.82 inches tall and 2.36 inches in diameter without its stand . It can operate on any flat surface, like a tabletop, or you can detach its swivel base and re-attach it to the back so you can mount it on a wall. You will need a $20 accessory to mount the camera on a ceilingthats pricey, even if it does come with all the screws and tools youll need.

Twisting a bayonet-style base provides access to the cameras removable battery, and Ring provides a set screw that will prevent a thief from casually nicking it. A second set screw can be used to make it more difficult to remove the camera from its mount when its attached to a wall. Unlike Rings Video Doorbell 2, however, both screws have a Philips head. The companys doorbell uses a Torx-head screw, requiring a tool that thieves are less likely to have in their pockets.

Michael Brown / IDG

The Ring Stick Up Cam has crude motion detection zones compared to other Ring camera models.

The indoor/outdoor model delivers the same 1080p resolution as the cheaper indoor model, but it has a slightly narrower field of view: 110 degrees horizontal and 57 degrees vertical, compared to 115 and 60 degrees respectively for the Indoor Cam. But its motion-detection zones are more crude: You can toggle three wedge-shaped detection zones on or off, and you can adjust the sensitivity of the active zones as a whole, but you cant adjust the width or depth of the wedges.

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Ring Stick Up Cam Not Recognizing Solar Panel: Troubleshooting Steps

Despite the success and reliability of the 3rd generation Ring Stick Up Cam, like any piece of sophisticated equipment, it may give you problems, including recognizing the Ring Solar Panel hookup, which is designed almost exclusively for the Stick Up Cam.

However, no problem is unsolvable, and there are some troubleshooting steps worth trying to get your Ring Stick Up Cam to charge in the sun. Below, well cover a few issues you may encounter with your Ring Stick Up Cam/Solar Panel combo and how to fix them.

Some Final Words On The Stick Up Cam

We feel comfortable joining in the praises of Ring, a brand that prides itself on making home security possible for almost anyone, because we are definitely almost anyone. We are working parents of young children in a Midwestern suburb, and safety is on our minds and hearts daily. We dont have deep pockets, though, so we take value very seriously. Ring consistently ranks high in both value and performance, which basically means that you get a really well-made product for a reasonable price.

And beyond that, we just love how easy it is to customize all of Rings features to our needs. But keep in mind, were not saying this is a perfect camera the Ring Stick Up Cam still trails behind some other cameras when it comes to advanced features like custom activity zones and facial recognition.

Ring Stick Up Cam on Shelf

The Nest Cam IQ, for example, boasts artificial intelligence-powered person detection that allowed us to distinguish between familiar faces in our home during our tests. Of course, AI is not a cheap feature the indoor IQ model costs $299 and goes up from there. Weve learned its often a get what you pay for scenario with security cameras so if you want suped-up features, youre inevitably going to pay for it.

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Stick Up Cam’s Main Competition:

• This 4G LTE security camera can survive a Wi-Fi outage

Keep in mind that your camera depends on a decent Wi-Fi connection. You might find a great place to install your camera, but if your network doesn’t work well in that spot, you might want to look for a new location or consider investing in a Wi-Fi range extender. You can always click on “Device Health” in the Ring app to view the strength of your Wi-Fi network when in doubt.

Once you’ve connected your Stick Up Cam, you can immediately view the live feed. You’ll automatically get 30 days of free access to the cloud service so you can see if it’s something you want to invest in later on.

The app layout is mostly intuitive, with your camera and any related motion activity displayed on the main screen. If you click on your camera — I labeled mine “Backyard” — you get access to a lot more features. This is where you can pull up the live feed, opt-in or -out of motion alerts and set custom motion zones and schedules.

Taking a peek inside Ring’s iPhone app.

While I received the motion alerts promptly, I found the live stream to be surprisingly grainy even when the Device Health section of the app told me my Wi-Fi signal was “Very Good.” While that isn’t a total dealbreaker, it did make 720-pixel HD look more like a 640×480 VGA SD feed. Not ideal.