Ring’s New $250 Drone With an Indoor Camera Sounds Terrifying.
Ring has become famous for its smart doorbells with built-in cameras and now sells more indoor cameras than any other company, accounting for over 40% of the market. When you’ve sold tens of millions of devices (enough to raise serious concerns about their use as part of a total surveillance system ), you always have to keep innovating, and today the company announced a product it’s been working on for ten years : a drone with an indoor camera powered by artificial intelligence. I had the chance to test it out yesterday at a media event, and I can say that as a harbinger of our dystopian future, it’s only mildly frightening.
Ring is launching a new line of robotic cameras.
The drone camera is one of two products in the new Ring Robotics line, along with a “robotic camera” that looks like a vacuum cleaner pod attached to an iPad. While the Ring Rover Cam costs $999.99 and is aimed at businesses, the Ring Drone Cam is much more affordable at $249.99 , which is reasonable enough to appeal to consumers looking for another way to (robotic) monitor their belongings.
The drone’s camera records 2K video, has a 148-degree field of view, and can rotate 360 degrees. It works with existing Ring cameras, doorbells, sensors, and alarms, as well as the Alexa Home app . Flight time is eight minutes, and after returning to the base station, a full charge takes about an hour (eight minutes on the docking station provides one minute of flight time).
The Ring drone camera uses artificial intelligence.
As Ring founder Jamie Siminoff explained during the presentation, the company spent about a decade trying to create a working camera drone, but was unable to overcome several design challenges until AI models emerged that allowed the device to handle much of the computing—from route programming to threat detection—via the cloud, making drones smaller and lighter.
According to Ring, when setting up the Ring Drone, you fly it around your home, allowing it to map your home. It will “intelligently identify rooms and suggest patrol points: areas that deserve special attention.” When sent on a “patrol,” the AI-powered drone pilot will navigate between problem areas, detecting and avoiding furniture and other obstacles along the way. The Ring Drone works with other Ring cameras, so if an alarm is triggered anywhere in your home—for example, a window is opened unexpectedly—the drone will take off to investigate. It has a built-in security light that will signal its presence, so it can also serve as a deterrent, although the whine of spinning propellers works just as well.
Ring says a drone camera can provide peace of mind whether you’re home or away, and I admit, I like the idea of being able to keep an eye on my pets or make sure pipes haven’t burst while I’m at work or on vacation (though, admittedly, you can get similar monitoring without using an AI-powered device that looks like a miniature version of the flying robots from “Terminator” ).
Alarm sound of security
I’ll admit, the Ring Drone camera looks pretty cool if you don’t overthink it. I’m not sure I really need every corner of my house covered in security cameras, but I like the idea that a drone could, for example, check what’s going on if the temperature sensor on one of my smoke alarms reports that somewhere in the house is suddenly hotter than it should be.
But I’m a little uneasy at the thought of a robot patrolling my home while I sleep. Yes, I know there are privacy and security features in place—Ring claims that videos captured by its robots are protected by “the strongest encryption by default”—but it’s also another example of how comfortable we’ve all become with cameras everywhere, to the point that people shamelessly install them all over their homes. (Probably why I don’t have a robot vacuum.) And it doesn’t help that the drone’s sound is downright terrifying, which Ring claims is intentional: “If someone is there where they shouldn’t be, a drone flying overhead… lets you know they’ve been noticed. [These] devices are designed for deterrence, not just surveillance.” That’s true, but there’s also no denying that drone propellers are inevitably loud, and the sound of a Ring drone reminds me of the shrill screech of violins in a horror movie. (Please note that the drone shown to us was white, but the final version that goes on sale will be dark gray.)
When can you buy a Ring drone camera?
If you’re ready to dive into this new world of security, you’ll have a bit of a wait: the Ring Drone Camera isn’t expected to ship until January 2027, but you can sign up for pre-order notifications now.