SoylentNews

Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/11/ring-cameras-go-mobile-as-amazon-debuts-ai-powered-security-drone-and-robot/ [arstechnica.com]

Amazon is betting that many Ring customers will also want an AI-powered security drone and robot patrolling their homes or offices.
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The Ring Rover Cam and Ring Drone Cam are expected to reach customers starting at the end of 2026 and in early 2027, respectively, according to an Amazon announcement [aboutamazon.com] posted on November 10. Amazon describes the devices as relying on an AI Pilot system
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Both devices also use that AI Pilot system to digitally map the floor plan of the customer’s home or business.
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Amazon’s Ring Drone appears to be a direct successor to the company’s Ring Always Home Cam [arstechnica.com]
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Amazon aims to make the drone available on January 27, 2027, with customers able to register for email updates through the product page [amazon.com].

The drone can supposedly follow a set route and schedule for customers who subscribe to the Amazon Ring Protect [ring.com] plan.
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  the drone is limited to just 8 minutes of flight time when operating on a “new, fully-charged battery under controlled conditions” according to the product description. It comes with a docking station for charging.

Another caveat in the product description is that the Ring Drone Cam may experience degraded performance when navigating in environments with reflective surfaces such as “polished marble or wet tile,” blank matte walls without any features, or transparent surfaces like frameless glass and mirrors.
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Amazon has pitched the Ring Rover Cam priced at $1,000 as “an autonomous security robot designed for business.” This product is already available for preorder [amazon.com] for those so inclined and scheduled to start shipping to customers on December 16, 2026.
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Like the Ring Drone, the Ring Rover can automatically respond to alerts from connected Ring devices by following its preprogrammed patrol points. But the wheeled robot is only designed to operate within a single-floor, indoor environment because it lacks stair-climbing capability.
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Amazon touts the new Ring Robotics products as offering “privacy and security without compromise,”
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Ring was previously charged in a 2023 Federal Trade Commission investigation [ftc.gov] with allowing employees and contractors to watch Ring video recordings of customers’ private spaces [arstechnica.com]. The FTC also described Ring as having lackluster safeguards that allowed hackers [ftc.gov] to access 55,000 US customers’ accounts.

Videos taken by the new Ring Drone and Ring Rover will be protected with Ring’s Throw Away the Key Encryption [aboutamazon.com] that was introduced in September 2026, according to Amazon’s announcement. The digital rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation [eff.org] (EFF) has described this as an improvement over Ring’s former default settings, but still well short of end-to-end encryption.
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Amazon’s previous attempt to launch its Ring Always Home Cam drone also led to expanded privacy concerns. Ryan Calo [uw.edu], a law and technology researcher at the University of Washington, previously described [aboutamazon.com] such a flying security camera as providing new ways to surveil others indoors, along with giving companies much greater access to potentially sensitive or identifying details of homes and businesses.
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Ring has allowed owners of fixed Ring doorbell cameras to turn on a “Familiar Faces” feature that uses facial recognition technology on visitors—and that is already the subject of a class action lawsuit [arstechnica.com].

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