Amazon Ring unveils flying drone camera and patrolling robot

Amazon’s Ring unveiled a flying indoor security camera and an autonomous patrolling robot for businesses on Tuesday, pushing deeper into the surveillance market that has made it one of the most recognizable names in home security, CNBC reported.

The $250 Ring Drone Cam is a security camera that flies. When an alarm or sensor on a door, window or home security device is triggered, the textbook-sized drone travels a pre-set path to investigate. It can fly from room to room, including upstairs, and capture footage during the day or at night. Users can also deploy it manually.

“If someone is going around your house at night, and your motion detector goes off on your Ring doorbell, imagine if you see spotlights and something flying across the window,” Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff said at a demo in New York. “You’re probably not going to go into that house.”

The drone flies for up to eight minutes before returning to its charging dock. It has two plastic-encased propellers that emit a loud buzz when airborne. It cannot fly outside, per Federal Aviation Administration regulations, and Ring has built in guardrails to prevent it.

The $1,000 Ring Rover Cam repurposes Amazon’s Astro consumer robot, first unveiled in 2021, as a business security device. The robot is a display mounted on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscope camera, a built-in siren, two-way audio and a light tower that shines onto the ceiling to help users track its location. It is designed to patrol offices, warehouses and other workspaces.

Ring said it “leveraged the best of Astro” to build the Rover Cam, describing it as a “purpose-built security robot.” The Astro had a short life as a consumer device and has seen few upgrades since its debut. The pivot to business security gives the product a second chance.

The Drone Cam ships Jan. 27, pending FCC approval. The Rover Cam begins shipping Dec. 16. Both devices flash an LED light when recording, which Ring says makes privacy the “default mode.”

Ring has provided Amazon a growing avenue in the smart home market, which Grand View Research estimates will top $200 billion in sales this year. But the company has been beset by privacy concerns, primarily over its partnerships with police departments. Earlier this year, Ring faced scrutiny over a Super Bowl ad touting an AI pet-finding tool, and it canceled an integration with police tech provider Flock Safety amid backlash over automated license plate readers.

Siminoff said the drone and robot let users monitor multiple areas with one device, addressing a reluctance to install cameras throughout a home. “People like indoor cameras, but they don’t necessarily want them everywhere around their home,” he said.

The products arrive as Amazon competes with Apple and Google for dominance in the smart home, and as consumers weigh convenience against privacy. A flying camera that responds to motion sensors is a significant escalation from a stationary doorbell camera, and the privacy implications are different. A doorbell camera watches the front porch. A drone watches whatever you tell it to, wherever you tell it to, including bedrooms and bathrooms.

Ring first previewed the drone, then called the Always Home Cam, in 2020. Siminoff said he held off on releasing it until Amazon could perfect the design, sensors and data processing. The five-year delay reflects both the technical challenge of building a safe indoor drone and the reputational risk of launching a surveillance product in a privacy-sensitive moment.

The products also reflect a strategic shift for Ring. The company built its brand on doorbell cameras, but the doorbell market is saturated. Growth has to come from new categories, and indoor monitoring is the logical next step. The drone and the robot are both attempts to replace multiple fixed cameras with a single mobile device, which is a different value proposition: not more cameras, but fewer cameras that move. Whether consumers see that as a feature or a complication will determine whether the products succeed or fail.

What I think

The drone is going to sell. $250 is cheaper than buying four indoor cameras, and the novelty factor is high. The eight-minute flight time is limiting, but most security events are over in eight minutes. The real question is whether people will accept a flying camera in their home, and I think they will, because people have already accepted stationary cameras in their homes, and a flying camera is just a stationary camera that moves.

The privacy concerns are real but familiar. Ring has been criticized for police partnerships, for data sharing, for facial recognition, and for every other thing it has done. The company has survived all of it because the products work and the price is right. The drone will be the same. The people who buy it will not be the people who worry about it, and the people who worry about it will not buy it.

The Rover Cam is the more interesting product. Amazon has been trying to make Astro happen for four years, and it has not happened. Repurposing it as a business security robot is a smart pivot, because businesses are less privacy-sensitive than consumers and more willing to pay $1,000 for a device that replaces a security guard. If the Rover Cam works, it will be because Amazon found the right market for a product that was wrong for its first one.