Amazon’s Ring unveiled a flying indoor security camera that allows users to autonomously monitor their home. Amazon’s Ring Ring is delving into surveillance with an indoor drone for home monitoring and an autonomous robot designed to patrol businesses. The company on Tuesday unveiled the $250 Ring Drone Cam, a security camera that can fly from room to room, even upstairs, as well as capture images during the day or night. When an alarm or sensor is activated on windows, doors and home security devices, the textbook-sized drone travels a pre-established path to investigate suspicious activity. Users can also deploy the drone at any time, the company stated. At a demonstration in New York on Monday, Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff said the drone could be used as a home monitoring tool and as a crime “deterrent” due to the device’s built-in LED lights. “If someone walks around your house at night and the motion detector goes off on your doorbell, imagine if you see headlights and something flying through the window,” Siminoff said. “You’re probably not going to go into that house.” The drone, which can fly for up to eight minutes at a time before autonomously returning to its charging base, has two plastic-coated propellers that emit a loud whirring noise when in the air. Ring devices have given Amazon another avenue to grow its smart home presence beyond its Echo smart speakers and Eero routers, expanding into a market that Grand View Research estimates will surpass $200 billion in sales this year. It’s equally fertile ground for rivals Amazon, Apple and Google. Ring, which Amazon acquired in 2018 and is known for its doorbells, has been dogged by privacy concerns, primarily due to its partnerships with police. Earlier this year, Ring faced new scrutiny for a controversial Super Bowl ad promoting an AI-powered pet search tool called “Search Party.” It then canceled an integration with police technology provider Flock Safety, which also faced widespread backlash over its automated license plate readers. Ring repurposed Amazon’s Astro consumer robot, first introduced in 2021, into an enterprise security device. RingRing first previewed its drone, later called the Always Home Cam, in 2020. Siminoff said he decided to postpone the device’s launch until Amazon could refine the design, sensors and data processing. On Tuesday, the company also introduced the $1,000 Ring Rover Cam. The device repurposes Amazon’s Astro home robot, which had a short life as a business device and has seen few updates since its debut in 2021, for businesses to patrol offices, warehouses and other workspaces. Ring said it “took advantage of the best of Astro” to build the Ring Rover Cam, which it describes as a “purpose-built security robot.” Like the Astro, the device is a display mounted on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscopic camera. It also features a “built-in siren”, two-way audio, and a “light tower” that shines on the roof to help users track its whereabouts. Siminoff said in an interview that the drone and robot allow users to monitor multiple areas of their home or business with a single device. “People like indoor cameras, but they don’t necessarily want them everywhere in their house,” Siminoff said. Ring said privacy is the “default” mode for both the drone and robot, which turn on an LED light when recording. Siminoff said the drone cannot fly outside under Federal Aviation Administration regulations, which restrict the operation of drones unless they are within a pilot’s line of sight. “We’ve told our customers not to do that because it’s illegal,” Siminoff said. “We’ve also put guardrails there so it doesn’t go flying.” The Ring Drone Cam will ship to the US on Jan. 27, pending Federal Communications Commission approval, while the Ring Rover Cam will begin shipping to users on Dec. 16, the company said. WATCH: Amazon falls over concerns about cloud growth
