Highly anticipated: Most home security cameras are stuck watching whatever sits in front of them, so there's always a hallway or back room left out of frame. Ring now wants its cameras to go and check on those spots themselves. The Amazon-owned company has unveiled an AI-powered indoor drone for homes and a rolling patrol robot for businesses.
The Ring Drone Cam costs $249.99 and is set to arrive in the US on January 27. It's essentially a second run at the Always Home Cam. Ring showed that one off back in 2020 at the same price, but it never actually shipped.
Owners can set the new drone to fly scheduled routes or send it out on demand. It can also take off on its own when a Ring camera, sensor, or alarm is triggered. Once it gets there, it streams 2K video with a 148-degree field of view and can spin around for a full look at the room.
The Verge, which got some hands-on time with it, notes that the drone weighs just 165 grams and carries no sensors beyond what it needs to land. So most of the work falls to AI Pilot, the system Ring built to steer both new devices. It turns a space into a floor plan, labels the rooms, and suggests patrol points like side doors and windows.
Businesses, meanwhile, get a wheeled robot called the Ring Rover Cam. It costs $999.99 and is already up for preorder ahead of its December 16 release. The Verge points out that it borrows much of its design from Amazon's Astro home robot – Astro's cupholder has even made way for a stubby tower with a siren and flashing light.
Amazon already tried pitching Astro to businesses in 2023, though it shut that version down just seven months later.
Of course, a camera that wanders around on its own raises some obvious privacy questions, especially after Ring's AI-powered Search Party feature for lost dogs drew backlash earlier this year. Ring says the drone's camera stays covered and switched off while docked. The Rover, for its part, has a sleep mode that retracts its camera and cuts the microphone.
Even the January date comes with an asterisk. Fine print in Ring's announcement admits the drone still hasn't been authorized by the FCC. The agency has been a lot stricter about drones since it blocked new foreign-made models last December. Scheduled patrols on both devices also need a Ring Protect subscription.