Managed to get my two Ring Video Doorbell's working properly by disabling SIG ALG and changing the VPM port numbers (I read on another thread that someone did this and it improved Ring reliability). Live view from a remote location is now almost instaneous.
For my setup, with or without SIP ALG, it's still around 2-3 seconds for Live View on Floodlight cams and Doorbell Pro. Spotlight cam sometimes can take anywhere between 2-7 seconds. The battery based products are really finicky with LiveView, in my experience. I think they try to optmize power savings at the expense of a fast LiveView response. But the wired products have really fast LiveView when things are working right. The only time when LiveView gets slow for me is when motion is detected and I load the Ring app to see who is there. Then that gets slow. But for self initiated LiveView, it should be quick.
Well went to test the Ring again today and sure enough...black screen. I've now moved it into DMZ to see if that solves the issue (I also changed NAT from Secured to Open just for grins). While Nest claims there is no need for this I found at least one other smart doorbell that recommends it.
Signal strength is self-reported as good. So the device is happy. I just wonder if it loses the signal and then decides to itself shut down into some sort ultra power saving mode...
I also set the ports to TCP. Not sure if it matters whether the service is enabled or not or whether this will help you. All I know is that these two settings fixed things for me.
Try choosing a specific 2.4Ghz channel instead of leaving it on Auto and if you can, don't use band steering. Have different SSIDs for 2.4 and 5.
For myself, what has made Live View turn on very quickly (ie: within 2-3 seconds):
1) Disable implicit beamforming
2) Disable mu-mimo.
3) Choose a specific 2.4Ghz channel (use a network analyzer so you don't collide channels with any neighbors).
4) Separate 2.4 and 5.0Ghz networks. (You'll need to change this manually in the node. Not supported by Netgear GUI).
Also, how many node are you guys using in your setup? I had a lot of problems with more than 2 nodes due to area overlapping and signal interference. Also some other tricks I did was to reset the power on the cam (if you have it atttached to a switch), or re-do the network setup after your Orbi is all up and running. For me, this would cause the cam to attach to the strongest node. However, I think the key is to not have your nodes too close together. In my observation, it confuses the Ring cams. (This is why they try to give you Ring Chime Pros). Have your nodes far apart, and only use the absolute necessary number of nodes.
I had 2 and 5 SSIDs different already but hard setting the channel is interesting. I’d suggest going even further and hard setting it to 1,6, or 11. My Orbi was on channel 4 this last go around when Live View stopped working. Quite possible the chip in the Ring only works on 1,6, 11. Found a thread on Ruckus Wireless’ website suggesting this might be the case, too.
Last night I unplugged all 4 of the Ring Chime Pro's that I was using and connected all of the cams back to my Orbi wifi, disabled SIG/ALG, changed VPN ports numbers and from UDP to TCP (still not sure if this would even matter since I didn't even have VPN enabled), and hard coded 2.4 to channel 11 instead of set to Auto. So far this morning, I haven't been able to get it to fail once. So I'm cautiously optimistic but thinking we may we on to something here! Thanks for all the replies yesterday.
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
My celebrations were short lived as it's doing it again when trying to access Live View. But here is what I've noticed. I seem to only start having the issues with Live View when there is motion being detected. We are in the middle of a pool build and I tried it all morning with no issues...probably 100 times but that was all before the pool guys started working. I got a motion alert a few minutes ago (when they got there and started walking around and working in the back yard) and now it's back to just like it was before....hit or miss with Live View. So now I'm thinking it's related to motion.
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
There is no specific channel 1,6,11. I've tried it on 2, 3 and now I'm on 8.
@rawbutt Are you using spotlights or floodlights? The behavior is quite different between the two.
I've experienced the same problem as you. When you initiate Live View, it works fast. However, when there is a lot of motion and your camera is constantly triggered with motion repeatedly, the Live View stops working as the camera gets overwhelmed. Now, having said that, I never get that problem on the video doorbell PRO. I only get the overwhelming issue on certain floodlight cams and I think signal strength and range is related to it, in my case, since they increased the video quality which requires higher bandwidth to/from your cam. The definition of "Good" in device health needs to be updated as the RSSI range is quite large for it to be defined as "good". Having said that, I am replacing that cam this weekend through warranty as I've been having issues with the microphones on several of my floodlight cams.
All of my issues are with Wired Spotlights. I have a Doorbell Pro on the front porch but have never noticed issues with it.... largely because I don't have nearly as much on the front porch to monitor.
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
Wired spotlights? As in the one with the power plug? It thought about getting that, but didn't have a place to plug it in. 🙂 I have 1 solar panel with 2 batteries spotlight. It has the best mic out of all my cams, but is the most finicky with Live View. The rest of my setup are hardwired floodlights and a hardwired video doorbell pro.
Have you tried experimenting with a single node setup with the Orbi and see if you still have the Live View issues?
Motion definitely kicks it back on (you can tell this because certain changes to the Ring require a doorbell push or motion detection). The problem is it should at least maintain a connection to the wifi at all times...otherwise how will it know you're trying to connect to it?
I honestly think this is a ring issue related to power savings. I think if barring a full strength signal this thing will power itself down too much to be seen by the router and the connection is dropped.
I suspect everything we're talking about on here is more about minimizing the impact of this design flaw (or engineering decision based on the amount of power a doorbell hookup can provide) rather than a real fix to the issue.
So this afternoon I attached the wireless router that the Orbi replaced (tp-link) to the sat that is closest to the ring doorbell via Ethernet . Gave it its own 2.4G SSID name using b/g/n and dedicated channel (channel 1 in my case). I reprogrammed the ring doorbell to it. This is a triple NAT situation (TP-LINK->Orbi->Cable Router). So far so good. Really good. The doorbell is maintaining its status as a client in the TP-LINK and live view has worked everytime I’ve checked it.
So dunno what to think. Will update in the morning. But it does put the onus back on the Netgear, doesn’t it? Unless the Ring is doing something completely out of spec and the other router is simply dealing with it better.
I really think it's because people have Orbi nodes too close together. This causes devices like Ring cams to get confused.
@wildsubnet You pretty much created an AP with its own unique SSID. This makes it work because now the Ring device only has a single point to access (but it defeats the purpose of having the Orbi nodes). I've mentioned this before in my previous post. If you have too much overlap in your Orbi nodes, it causes a lot of interference and confuses devices. I even had issues with my iPhone X when I had too much overlapping during node to node transitions.
I don’t think the orbis are too close. When setting them up I had to bring a bit closer together to get the backhaul operational.
What I really did was create another network using another vendor’s kit and it’s been rock solid for 9 hours. Whether this is on Netgear or Ring we’ll probably never know for sure. But if this holds its totally acceptable to me since it was basically free.
The orbi itself has been very solid for me otherwise. Indeed 4K and HD video stream all the time with almost zero issues. So could it be Ring still? Sure. It’s possible they are doing something out spec that Netgear doesn’t handle well and quite frankly out of spec is out of spec.
One more point....this appears to an issue with Netgear and Ring devices not just Orbi based on the googling I did on this issue.
So is it pretty much a general consensus with this issue that unplugging all Orbi satellites and just running the router is the same as testing with a standalone (non mesh) router or does this issue still sometimes persist even with only the one Orbi router node running?
Model: RBK50| Orbi AC3000 High-Performance Tri-Band WiFi System
