Ring robots ready to patrol paranoids’ pads
With this Ring move, Amazon is once again putting robots capable of mapping interior spaces into customers' hands, reviving some of the privacy questions raised during its failed iRobot acquisition.
Key points
- The consumer-focused Ring Drone Cam launches from its own charging dock that Amazon says keeps the thing “out of sight” when not in use, and when in flight is able to patrol a home by flying around pre-programmed routes to take in the sights with its 148-degree FOV, 2K camera that includes LED illumination for night patrols.
- Ring agreed to pay $5.8 million in a 2023 settlement with the FTC over allegations that employees and contractors improperly accessed customers' private videos and that the company failed to adequately protect accounts against unauthorized access – just imagine the privacy concerns raised by flying robots.
- The house of Bezos announced the launch of Ring Robotics on Tuesday along with its first two products: a drone designed for indoor home security, and a wheeled robot with a telescoping camera mast for automated after-hours business patrols.
Both are designed to proactively patrol spaces as well as respond to alerts from connected alarm systems and Ring-connected devices.
Additional details
- The Ring Rover Cam, designed with businesses in mind, is sort of like a security Roomba that sports a camera on a telescoping mast that Amazon says can be programmed to certain heights to let it see over counters, shelves, and other workplace obstacles.
- Of course, given that this is Ring we're talking about, these flying and free-wheeling cameras use Amazon's cloud for some processing, likely inviting privacy concerns about what footage and mapping data the company can access and retain.
- Amazon/Ring also invited criticism for a Super Bowl ad earlier this year promoting a new feature called Search Party, which would remotely activate Ring cameras to search for lost pets, suggesting that Amazon had the ability, in theory, to use Ring cameras like a dystopian neighborhood surveillance network.
- Another Ring feature, Familiar Faces, which uses AI-powered facial recognition to identify people captured by compatible cameras, prompted a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in June.
- If we can’t have iRobot, we’ll do it with Ring Amazon abandoned its efforts to buy Roomba robot-vacuum maker iRobot in 2024, blaming regulatory scrutiny for the move.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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