What to know when your Ring Alarm goes offline

Learn about the emergency systems your Ring Alarm uses to continue to protect your home even if circumstances arise that would ordinarily knock the system offline.

Note: If the Base Station goes offline, you will be unable to access or control your devices through the app, but your device will remain armed, and the Ring Alarm siren will still function.

Cellular backup

Your Ring Alarm usually communicates with you or your monitoring service through the internet via wifi or an Ethernet cable. Any time your Base Station loses its connection to the internet, regardless of the cause, a cellular backup system kicks in that will allow the system to continue to monitor your home.

Note: You will need to have Ring Protect Plus to use the cellular backup system.

Learn more about Ring Protect plans.

Battery backup

Your Base Station includes a battery backup that allows your system to keep working if the power goes out or your Base Station is accidentally unplugged. When the Base Station starts using battery backup, it will work normally for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the Base Station will continue to monitor your sensors and send alarm signals, but will shut off any other features to preserve battery life. Depending on your usage, there is enough battery power for up to 24 hours.

If your Base Station is running on battery backup, the battery icon on the Base Station details page in the Ring app will reflect this. Also, the power icon on the base station will flash yellow when it is running on battery backup.

When power returns, the battery will recharge until it reaches full power.

SIM card specifications 

With cellular backup, you’ll remain covered in case your internet connection goes offline. For this, we use an AT&T SIM card, included with the Ring Alarm Base Station. 

Note: Only the provided SIM card will work for this purpose. Using your own SIM card, or a SIM card from another service provider will not be possible.