Ring Chime Won’t Enter Setup Mode: What To Do

Last month I setup a new Wi-Fi mesh system to improve my home's Wi-Fi reach, but instead of keeping the same network name and password, I decided to move all my devices over to the new Wi-Fi details one-by-one.

Overall this worked fairly well: I updated 2-3 devices a day, and after a few weeks, I was done. Well, other than my Ring Chime. When I went to change its Wi-Fi details… it stopped working. The blue sign no longer appeared. It was dead. Finito. I couldn't enter setup mode at all.

Which was a little frustrating, because whilst I also use my Echo devices as a Ring Doorbell chime, I also rely on the Ring Chime at the front of my house. So what did I do in this case?

If your Ring chime doesn't enter setup mode, you should firstly swap to a different socket. Then try holding the setup button (for either 5 or 15 seconds). If this doesn't work, fear not: there's two other things you can try.

Before I dive into those steps in more detail, I wanted to briefly re-cap on what the Ring Chime unit is.

The Ring Chime unit

The Ring Chime is a fairly nifty device. Because not all Ring Doorbells can ring your existing doorbell chime unit, you can buy the Ring Chime. This plugs into a wall socket and it plays a configurable doorbell sound when someone is at your door (or when motion is detected):

As I mentioned earlier, you can also do this with an Amazon Echo device by setting it up as an announcement device within the Alexa app:

Of course, not everyone wants an Amazon Echo: sometimes a simple chime unit is all you need. Plus you might not want an Echo device right by your front door, in-case someone opens your letter box and shouts “Alexa, lights off”.

I wish I was joking, but that's something that I think we'll see more of in the future.

Either way, buying a separate Ring Chime can make a lot of sense. But sometimes you will need to enter setup mode: and this is where your problems might begin!

How to Enter Setup Mode on your Ring Chime (In Theory!)

When you first purchase your Ring Chime unit, you may need to enter setup mode to add it within the Ring app. Equally if you have changed your Wi-Fi router, you will need to enter setup mode to change the Wi-Fi details (also through the Ring app).

Getting into setup mode is simple (in theory): just hold the setup button on the right hand side of the device for 5 seconds:

At this point, the “ring” text should start flashing blue. At this point, you can follow the steps within the Ring app:

Once you've finished setting up your Ring chime, the “ring” text should be a constant blue instead.

Unfortunately when I did this process last month, I held the setup button for 5 seconds… and the blue light went out – never to be seen again!

In my case, my Ring Chime unit had actually bricked itself and I needed a new one – but I went through every possible debug step before then. So let's dive into exactly what you should do if your Ring Chime is stubborn about entering setup mode!

Solution #1: Change Wall Socket

If you have plugged your Ring Chime in, held the setup button for 5 seconds, and nothing happens, you should firstly move the Ring Chime to a different wall socket.

I know that it's very unlikely to make any different, but it's the first thing that Ring customer service will ask you to do. Plus there's a 0.01% change that your wall socket is playing up, so it is worth quickly plugging your Ring chime into a different socket.

You should see the “ring” text flash blue, and either stay blue, or be flashing blue.

If that hasn't worked, let's move onto the next setup.

Solution #2: Hold the Setup Button for 5 Seconds

Hold the setup button for another 5 seconds. Yes, I know that you've already tried this a bunch of times. But some people report that it worked for them on the 10th try.

So if only to humor the Ring customer support staff (who will also ask you to try this again!), just try this one more time.

Related Reading: Ring Chime Is Currently Updating Its Internal Software

Solution #3: Hold the Setup Button for 15 Seconds

You had no luck on that last step? Well, there's some fun in store for you. This time, you should hold the setup button for 15 seconds – woohoo! This will perform a hard reset of the Ring chime, and a fair number of users have reported that this did actually do the trick.

In this case, you might have to add this as a new device within the Ring app (or sometimes it'll just show that your existing device needs to be setup again).

Basically if the “ring” text starts flashing blue after this step, you're in luck. Head over to the Ring app and follow the steps.

Solution #4: Delete the old Chime in the App, and Re-Add It

If nothing else has worked so far, the next step is to go into “Chimes” or “Devices” under the Ring app, select your dodgy Ring Chime unit, select “General Settings” and then “Remove This Device”:

At this point, you can then try adding a ‘new' Ring Chime under Devices and by clicking the blue “+” button (and remember to hold the setup button for 5-15 seonds!):

Follow the steps, and eventually it'll hopefully find your Ring chime and connect to it in the usual way:

Of course, if your Ring Chime unit isn't entering setup mode, you probably won't be able to get to the above step. The Ring app will probably fail to detect the Ring Chime, and give you an error.

If you have ultimately moved your Ring Chime unit to a new socket and held the setup button for 15 seconds (all to no avail), your next step is probably to look at getting a new Ring Chime unit.

Learn how to activate or deactivate Ring's ‘You Are Being Recorded‘ warning in our comprehensive guide on managing privacy settings.

Solution #5: Contact Ring customer support (especially if you're under warranty)

If nothing else has worked so far, contacting Ring customer support is probably the next step. This isn't always a quick process, as I discovered with my own phone call to them:

However there are two benefits to calling Ring:

1. They might have some new diagnostic or debugging methods for you to try which I haven't covered above. I mean, everything I have mentioned so far is what Ring customer support asked me to do – but they might have some extra insight into your particular case, based on their own diagnostic systems (the Ring Chime will naturally ‘phone home' quite regularly, so Ring will have a bunch of data and logs available to them).
2. If your Ring Chime is still under warranty, they will probably send you a new one. Remember that if you pay for Ring Protect Plus or Pro, you get an extended warranty on all your devices. So even if your Ring Chime is more than a year old, Ring might still cover you and send you a new one.

So if you have tried all the steps so far, I would suggest contacting Ring customer services. That's what I did, and after a 20 minute call, they sent me a new unit:

When to Accept your Ring Chime is Bricked

To wrap up, when should you accept defeat and just buy a new Ring Chime?

I had a hunch that my Ring Chime was bricked because it would very briefly flash up blue when I first turned it on, but that was it. It would never enter setup mode.

Basically if you know that the wall socket in question works fine, then hold the setup button for 15 seconds. If the “ring” text doesn't flash blue, your Ring Chime unit is probably bricked (unfortunately).

In this case, your options are:

1. Contact Ring customer services, especially if your Chime is under warranty.
2. Just use your Echo devices as doorbell chime units instead.
3. Buy a new Ring chime.