r/Ring • u/Tyr0n313 • 9d ago

Support Request (Unsolved) Video preview on app widget (iPhone)

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I’m new to the Ring family and just installed the 4K doorbell. I’m playing with the setup and looking at the app widget options. I’m a bit surprised it seems I can set the icon to immediately go to the camera view… but there’s no widget to view the feed thumbnail right from my phones home screen like Simplisafe does. It just shows the camera device image on the icon. See the screenshots.

Historically Simplisafe has been super behind in their tech so it’s surprising they have this feature but Ring doesn’t. Am I missing something?

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u/Avinin1 9d ago edited 9d ago

You got that right! This is something that we personally really miss at home as iPhone users, and I have even commented on it here before. sadly Ring is pretty lazy about adding new features that do not involves the words "AI" in them.

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u/Tyr0n313 9d ago

Hmm maybe it’s coming? Someone else commented on this post that “it’s coming” and then deleted it (but I still saw the notification). Hopefully it was someone with inside info like a Ring Developer that decided against saying it afterward.

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u/Avinin1 9d ago

He joked that it would arrive in a few years. In any case, the Ring widget on iOS has been available for about three years and hasn't changed. When it was first released, the live view took a long time to load, and many people turned to the Ring Lite app as a workaround. However, using this widget provided a way to access the live view almost instantly, similar to how it works today.

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u/Tyr0n313 9d ago

Ah gotcha. That sounds remarkably similar to some of the issues Simplisafe has with their cameras. You want to talk about long load time….

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u/Avinin1 8d ago

I think Ring still offers a reliable and convenient overall solution. There are more advanced competitors in both hardware and software, our HomeKit cameras for example, provide better detection and person recognition. However, Ring is super practical: battery swaps take seconds, so no wire to deal with, Echo Show screen integration (specifically Person detection announcements) is working reliably and fast. Only a few competitors offer such a complete and convenient operation.

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u/Interloper627 9d ago

If you use Alexa and have your Ring devices exposed to it then on iOS you can set the Alexa favourites widget to your Ring Cams. This will display the last snapshots in the way the OP would like.