disappointed with accessibility of ring app

By Troy, 28 February, 2018

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I don't know about you but accessibility has really gone down hill with the ring app and voiceover, however on my fire tablet ring works just fine like it once did on IOS. What happened? I sent them an email letting them know. Hopefully since amazon has bought ring they will fix this! Other than that I love the ring doorbell!

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Comments

By kevinchao89 on Sunday, February 25, 2018 - 17:23

I've also observed a decline in the VoiceOver accessibility of iOS app for Ring Video doorbell.
+1 to hoping Amazon will be able to apply their accessibility standards on Ring.

By Luke on Sunday, February 25, 2018 - 17:23

I only recently noticed troubles with the Ring app as of the latest update. Specifically, nothing is read aloud by VoiceOver in the activity history screen and a few other places. I wrote Ring support an email about this issue and included a screenshot of the activity screen where I'm having the majority of VoiceOver issues. They wrote me back within 24 hours with what seemed like a genuinely concerned, sincere response. She affirmed that the company is committed to making sure the app is compatible with VoiceOver and that all users have access to it and she said she would forward my message to the appropriate development team. I got a good impression from this prompt and personalized reply, so hopefully we'll see improvements in upcoming versions. Please, everyone else having these issues, also do write them at help@ring.com so they know it's not just an isolated issue.

Joe

By Troy on Sunday, February 25, 2018 - 17:23

I emailed them and then tweeted them, so far got a response to my tweet, so they are reading them so everyone contact them and be heard! When using voiceview on a tablet it seems like that is still accessible. I'm also having an issue with neighborhoods on my ios device telling me no one is home, works fine on my fire. I think I did read somewhere though where this is a bug with the ios app.

By Edward Alonzo on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

Good afternoon: I am sorry to report that the ring video doorbell application still does not seem to be accessible. I just recently purchased two ring video doorbell's, and was sitting up the application while waiting for my doorbells to ship to me. I find that when I press the menu button, now called a "hamburger button" doesn't seem to work when using voiceover. Elements on the screen do not speak properly. I have turned off voiceover, and touched on the screen, somehow was able to bring up a Settings menu, but other than that it doesn't seem that the app is very usable. Has anyone had any other success? I'm going to write them and make them aware of this.

By Wayne Scott Jr on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

You should call them. I don't have the Ring app. But, when I was researching it, I called them. Very friendly. I don't have their number, you can Google it, though.

By KE7ZUM on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

Has anyone written to them about this? I am goign to get my dad a ring 2 and I want the ios app to be accessible for all of us. I hear the android app is having similar issues but we won't go into that here.

By mendi on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

Either I've just grown to figuring out work-arounds, or my experience is entirely different, because I have a Ring Pro and can get around the app mostly fine. There are a few unlabeled things here and there, but I can get to the majority of what I need, including settings, device health, I set up the device myself, etc. I am forever viewing my event history with little to no problem, and I am able to answer alerts. For the record, I am am running iOS13.1.3 on an iPhone8.

By Paul on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

The Ring app is frankly better than it used to be. I too have noticed the issue with the hamburger menu and reported the issue to Ring.

By Steve Sawczyn on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

The biggest ,challenge for me ha with the ring app has been the hamburger menu. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but I swear this worked fine before I upgraded to iOS13. Before iOS 13, after I hit the hamburger button, I could find the menu options using explore by touch. I've noticed hamburger menus breaking in a few other apps as well lately and am beginning to wonder if Apple changed something in iOS13. Anyway, hamburger menu aside, I've been able to use the Ring app for the most part although I've had to find some creative ways to get around the menu. Mainly if I tap on a specific device, I can access settings or other related info that way. The alarm options still work for me on the same screen although I rely on the push notification ... or keypad voice if I'm home, to let me know that the arming or disarming operation was successful. Ideally, the app would indicate which alarm option is currently selected.

To be fair, I am relatively new to ring, I have the alarm and two of the doorbells. I have not written them about the accessibility issues yet as I was waiting until things settle down a little bit after the iOS 13 update.

By Robin on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

I can verify having the hamburger issue and reported it to the Ring people both via email and Twitter this week. Once I activate hamburger all VoiceOver reads is the status line and nothing but getting out of the app rectifies this. As an aside I am having another unique issue whereby only one of my Echo dots will answer a bell the others say this is not supported on the device. Not Apple related but I reported that both to Ring and Amazon as well. I do wish that they'd allow a swipe down on a notification to yield the answer call button rather than having to go into the app to execute such.

By Paul on Friday, October 25, 2019 - 17:23

The most recent Ring update (5.19.0) fixes the hamburger menu issue.

There is no harm in reporting an accessibility issue or bug immediately, provided you do it respectfully. The sooner a dev knows about the issue, the sooner they can fix it.

By KeyboardWorrier on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - 17:23

I’m looking at getting a Ring doorbell. Please can somebody update me on the status of voiceover accessability in the app? Cheers.

By KE7ZUM on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - 17:23

It looks to be accessible. I can use it to check my alerts for where I live, who's at the door etc. As for talking that is now treated like a phone call as far as I've noticed.

Take care

By mendi on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 - 17:23

I am a ring user, and I can say the app is in large part accessible. There are a few little oddities with how the sound behaves when going live or sometimes answering alerts, but it's nothing show stopping. At one time there was a menu that wasn't accessible, but that has since been fixed.

Also, there is a companion app called Rapid Ring. This is a smaller app that loads quicker and is a bit easier to use to answer alerts and/or just do a quick view of your cameras.

Hope this is helpful.

By Jim D on Monday, January 25, 2021 - 17:23

All:
Am now using a Ring Video Doorbell Pro and I just wrote the Ring support team about an issue I am experiencing with the Ring Always at Home app. Within the app, you have a dashboard. When you first start using the product, the app has all sorts of shortcuts , like lights, alarms and water valves on the dashboard. I didn't need these, so I removed everything except the doorbell shortcut. When I tried to re-add the shortcut for the chime, I found that you cannot re-enable shortcuts using Voiceover.
Also, and this is certainly a would be nice feature, it would be great if there were an accessible way to adjust the motion zones for each camera using Voiceover. I know this is highly visual, but it would be cool if they could use a thirty feet or fifty feet or something similar approach. Anyhow, if any of you have successfully adjusted your zones using VoiceOver, would love to hear how you did it.
Thanks.
Jim