Amazon Ring Indoor Drone
Ring has put a security camera on a quadcopter. The Ring Drone Cam weighs 165 g, flies set patrol routes through a house and sends video back from the air, and it ships at US$249.99 in roughly two and a half months.
The drone lifts off its dock when a schedule comes due, when a linked sensor trips, or when an owner starts a flight in the Ring app. Ring calls it a flying indoor security camera and sells it as the first product of Ring Robotics, alongside the Ring Rover Cam.
But the pitch is reach. Ring founder and chief inventor Jamie Siminoff said customers had spent years asking for eyes in the places a fixed camera cannot go, and the answer was a camera that moves rather than more units on walls.
Both machines run AI Pilot, which Ring describes as cameras, specialised vision models, on device sensors and cloud processing that let the drone see, think and navigate without a pilot. Setup means carrying it through the rooms so it can build a floor plan, label rooms and suggest patrol points at doors and windows.
Flights can also be aimed at a spot on the Alexa Home Map, the 3D map Amazon showed off earlier this year. Tap a room and the drone plots its own course there. Owners can store two routes and set the times.
And the hardware is small enough to live on a shelf. The front camera shoots 2K video and carries LEDs bright enough to light a dark room and to be seen from a window, which Ring calls a deterrent. Engadget reports a 1080p camera underneath, while CNET describes two 2K cameras, one forward and one facing the floor.
Amazon puts a flight at between eight and ten minutes, depending on the altitude of the route, after which the drone lands or returns to its dock, and recharging is where the accounts part. Engadget reports that eight minutes in the dock buys a minute of flight, while CNET says a full charge takes about an hour. CNET watched a one minute demonstration that covered two medium rooms, and Ring staff put the covered area at roughly 325 square metres.
Ring says the drone stops recording once it docks, and that footage from both machines is protected by Throw Away the Key Encryption, which the company introduced earlier this year. TechCrunch says Ring has not said whether footage can be stored locally.
So the same navigation stack is being sold to businesses. The Rover Cam drives instead, streams 4K video, carries a periscope camera that lifts above shelving and speaks in both directions, and patrols premises on schedules the owner sets.
Ring has given no Singapore price or availability for either machine. The drone appeared in 2020 as the Always Home Cam, a concept that never reached shelves, and Siminoff said earlier versions had been built and boxed without shipping because they did not work well enough.
Ring's flying indoor camera is priced at US$249.99 and ships in January
It weighs 165 g, flies for eight to ten minutes and lands itself on a dock
AI Pilot builds a floor plan by walking the drone through the house
The Rover Cam brings the same software to 4K patrols of business premises
Ring has announced no Singapore pricing for either robot
Source: Engadget, CNET, TechCrunch, Amazon, Ring
