Ring is still one of the leading names in smart home technology. Their motion sensor security cameras are some of their most popular products. The Ring Floodlight Cam not only keeps the outdoors bright via its two bright LED bulbs, it also makes sure you have an added layer of security around the house.
So what happens when those LEDs start to fail? LED lights are much more durable than traditional light bulbs. While they can keep on shining for years, even the LEDs in a Ring Floodlight Cam can fail. When this happens, what can you do? The gist is…
The Ring Floodlight Cam bulbs are not officially replaceable – doing it yourself would invalidate your Ring warranty. So it's better to claim on the warranty if it's still active. However if it's not, you can DIY it as long as you know how to solder wires together. Of course, there are other ways to get around this problem as well as tips for keeping your Ring LEDs running for their full lifespan.
What Is The Ring Floodlight Cam?
This is one of Ring’s flagship smart home products:
This is a motion sensor light and security camera rolled into one. The Ring floodlight offers powerful LED lighting and an HD camera. This smart home product works with most of today’s apps and is especially designed to work with Amazon's Alexa ecosystem.
This floodlight costs more than many of the other models on the market. Ring is well known for the quality of their products and that reputation comes with a considerable price tag. Throw in additional Alexa devices to make the most of your Ring cam, and you’ve got a dedicated setup.
But when the LED lights on your Ring cam fails, you want to have options that can protect that value.
How Long Do Ring Floodlight LEDs Last?
Almost forever. These LEDs are rated for a 10-year lifespan. That’s with regular use and in normal conditions. This lifespan is pretty ideal for most users. You’ll be able to get full functionality out of these LEDs without ever having to worry about them burning out.
In fact, most of the time these LEDs go bad, it is because of damage or factory defects. LEDs are very efficient technology and not nearly as fragile as incandescent bulbs.
But if they do break, what can you do?
Can You Replace The Ring Floodlight Cam's LED Bulbs?
Remember how we said the answer was mostly a “no” here?
The only real way to replace the LED lights on these cameras is to crack them open and do some minor electrical work. Outside of that, the Ring floodlight camera is meant to be a single, weatherproofed unit that can not be repaired.
This doesn’t sound very good for us consumers after forking out over $200 on it, but there are a few options open to us when our Ring LEDs fail. If your Ring floodlight camera is starting to have LED trouble, there’s hope.
What To Do When Your Ring Floodlight LED Breaks
We’re going to be tackling solutions to this particular problem in order of easiest to hardest.
The first few solutions just involves you sending your Ring equipment back to the factory and waiting for a replacement model to be sent back to you.
After that, we’ve going to look at the alternatives to Ring floodlights and ways you can work around burnt out LEDs.
Our last stop is going to be the exciting world of DIY where we’ll take a look at how you can replace your Ring LEDs if you feel like also acquiring some basic electrical skills.
Option #1 – Use Your Warranty
The first stop should be to use your warranty.
Honestly, if your warranty is still valid on your Ring product and whatever damage broke the LEDs is covered, then this is the easiest way to go. The warranty is a layer of consumer security meant to help protect your investment into smart home technology.
This warranty covers your Ring Floodlight Cam for up to one year from your original purchase date. If you’ve still got coverage, why not use it?
Warranties are great, and if you have a Ring subscription service, your warranty might be extended further.
Option #2 – Ring Protect Plus
Ring offer three different Ring Protect plans, with various benefits at each level:
Ring Protect Plus is an additional layer of service for your Ring cameras and/or alarm system, and signing up to it gives another nice benefit – an extended warranty for your Ring devices.
This program costs $10 per month or a $100 per year fee. It extends the duration of all active warranties as long as the plan continues.
This means that you can keep your Ring devices protected indefinitely as long as you are willing to pay for the continued service. The exact wording from Ring's website is:
For extended warranty coverage to apply to your Ring device, the device must be within its original warranty period when you subscribe to Ring Protect Plus. Once the original warranty expires, the device will be covered under Ring protect Plus until you discontinue your subscription. Non-Ring and other third-party devices are not eligible for the extended warranty.
Ring support pages
Ring Protect Plus also comes with a few other perks that some users might find worth the money on top of the boosted warranty:
- Product discounts when bought through Ring.com
- Professional monitoring for the Ring Alarm system
- All of the features of the basic Ring Protect plan too (i.e. recordings are stored for 30-60 days, better notifications and more).
Option #3 – Buy An Alternative Model
Most smart floodlight cameras are designed as closed units. This means that despite LEDs being very long-lasting, your average brand of smart floodlight camera doesn't want you changing those light bulbs on your own.
Ring, Nest, and other major brands are all built without an easy way for the average smart home user to change those LEDs on their own. If your Ring smart floodlight has broken, you can always use this as an opportunity to update your model or try out another brand – Amazon have a range of lesser known brands that sell smart floodlight cams for under $100.
For example, you may want to consider a product like the Sengled smart LED light bulb camera combo. These screws right into an existing light socket and provides both floodlight and camera functionality in one package. The camera might not live up to Ring or Nest, but it does open up more options for smart home enthusiasts.
There’s another option that allows us to break up the smart floodlight camera package into individual parts.
Option #4 – Modular Smart Home Solutions
If you’re worried about smart lights burning out on you, you can always try to split the lights and the camera into two systems.
You can quickly and easily get this done by using separate products: an outdoor smart camera, and a separate floodlights. This approach even works with old-fashioned motion sensor floodlights that don’t have smart tech built in.
For example, you can just buy a cheaper Ring Stick-up Cam, and then use any floodlight – smart or not. That way, you'll get motion-activated light (from the floodlight) and still get smart video recording via your Ring Cam. This will probably work out cheaper overall than buying a Ring Floodlight Cam.
So if your Ring's LEDs have burnt out, this approach allows you to create a more modular smart home that can be easily repaired without replacing whole units.
But of course, if you're competent with wiring and soldering, a DIY solution might be best.
Option #5 – DIY (a.k.a. Why You Might Want to Break Your Ring Floodlight Warranty!)
Looking to keep using your Ring Floodlight Cam, but need to fix those LEDs? This DIY solution lets you do these repairs at home.
As it turns out, plenty of companies sell third-party parts for Ring, Nest, and other smart home brands. However, using these DIY solutions means brushing up on your electricity safety 101 and picking up some DIY skills.
There are plenty of tutorials online for repairing a Ring floodlight camera:
This will walk you through taking off the broken LEDs and attaching, and wiring, the new lights. Keep in mind that this will definitely torch your warranty (Protect Plus plan or otherwise). But if the warranty isn't a concern, if you follow the guide and embrace the skill-building nature of DIY, then this can turn any broken smart light into one you can fix at home.
Once your Ring Floodlight Cam is all fixed up, is there any way of preventing the LEDs failing again?
Can You Improve The Lifespan Of Your Ring Floodlight LEDs?
Absolutely!
All tech comes with best practices that will keep it working its full lifespan. Ring's Floodlight Cam is no different. Here are a few tips for keeping these lights on for years to come.
Keep them dry. Technology may have advanced a long way since gas-powered lighting, but water is still the enemy. Whilst the Floodlight Cam is designed to be weatherproofed and the LED lights have little ‘hoods' on them, if your Ring floodlight gets exposed to too much water, or water gets inside the housing, then your LEDs are toast.
You should also keep temperature in mind. If you live in a desert climate, you should try to give these lights a little shade during the day. This can usually be done by positioning them under and overhang.
Finally, the positioning of your Ring Floodlight Cam is also important:
- Try to position your floodlights where they will get at least some protection from the elements. Hail, high winds, or being placed under a water run-off spot on your roof will quickly wear down these LEDs.
- If it's positioned such that motion events are detected all the time, this will turn on the LEDs all the time too – which will inevitably reduce the lifespan of the bulbs. Thankfully you can also adjust this within the Ring app – either by reducing motion sensitivity, or simply controlling the time of day that the Floodlight Cam's lights come on. As a final resort, you could decide to simply keep the lights off when motion is detected (and instead only manually turn them on/off via the app, when you need them on):
