Notification delay

[dpamping]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Describe The Bug

The notification takes 5-10 seconds after the doorbell is pressed.

To Reproduce

No response

Expected behavior

The notification should appear right when the doorbell is pressed.

Relevant log output

No response

Screenshots

No response

Homebridge Ring Config

-

Additional context

No response

OS

Raspberry

Node.js Version

20.5.1

NPM Version

Homebridge/HOOBs Version

5.1.8

Homebridge Ring Plugin Version

13.2.1

Operating System

Hoobs

[tsightler]

You have provided no actionable information in this issue report. Please share your specific doorbell model and enable debug on the plugin and provide logs of a doorbell press event.

[dpamping]

i dont see any doorbell press event logs, here is what it shows when pressed, model is Doorbell Wired:
08:10:29 PMRing BridgeRinginfoUsed cached snapshot for Timbre
08:10:56 PMRing BridgeRinginfoFailed to cache snapshot for Timbre (15.002s), The camera currently reports that it is online
08:10:56 PMRing BridgeRinginfoSnapshot for Timbre (doorbell_graham_cracker - Doorbell Wired) failed to refresh after 15 seconds
08:10:57 PMRing BridgeRinginfoNo snapshot cached for Timbre
08:10:58 PMRing BridgeRinginfoNo snapshot cached for Timbre
08:10:58 PMRing BridgeRinginfoNo snapshot cached for Timbre
08:10:58 PMRing BridgeRinginfoNo snapshot cached for Timbre
08:10:58 PMRing BridgeRinginfoNo snapshot cached for Timbre
08:11:09 PMRing BridgeRinginfoSnapshot cached for Timbre (11.98s)

[tsightler]

i dont see any doorbell press event logs,

Did you enable debug for the plugin as noted above? Regardless, you appear to have a Ring Doorbell Wired and no Ring subscription. These cameras effectively behave as battery cameras and are unable to take snapshots while recording, however, the code currently doesn't understand that these "wired" cameras are actually just battery cameras in disguise and tries to take a snapshot, which times out, the notification is delayed until this timeout occurs. This is a known limitation of the current code with that specific model and no subscription. There is already PR #1280 which works around the behavior, but it hasn't been merged to this point.

[dpamping]

Yes, I enabled debug. Im not subscribed to ring.
So there is no fix to this?

[dpamping]

The thing is that on the home app I have snapshots, so I don't understand the issue.

[tsightler]

For this moment, there is no fix without a subscription, unless @dgrief is OK with merging the PR in a future version. I'm skeptical of the solution due to it being one-off behavior based on specific model as that is a bit of a maintenance nightmare, but it's not up to me to decide whether to merge that fix or not. However, this is just an OSS plugin, you can go and make the change yourself or maintain your own fork with the fix.

The thing is that on the home app I have snapshots, so I don't understand the issue.

The camera can take snapshots, it just can't take snapshots when it is recording. Pressing the doorbell causes it to start recording, so, by the time the notification arrives to ring-homebridge, and, since there is no subscription so that the snapshot could be downloaded from Ring servers, it requests an updated snapshot from the camera, but the camera will ignore the request and it times out. It's well documented behavior in the FAQ.

[dpamping]

Oh I see, that’s a shame then. I don’t know how to make the changes so I hope this gets implemented. It’s the cheapest ring so I understand is the most used one and everyone has this same issue. Thanks for your help.

[tsightler]

Ring doorbells are cloud doorbells and are designed to sell Ring subscriptions, which most users do have since most users want to be able to record events. It's really not that bad at $50/year to get full notifications and 180 days of video recording. In general, if you don't want to pay subscriptions, best to avoid cloud powered devices as it's simply in the vendors interest to limit the features available without a subscription. There is a reason the doorbell is cheap, they don't make money without the subscription.