Amazon Ring's Indoor Security Drone

Well another 'amazing, convenient' device for the modern smart home companies keep telling everyone they want so much.

Today we have the new Autonomous indoor security drone from Ring, amazon's home security company. For $250, you can pay for the privilege of owning a small robot, connected to Amazon's ring service, automatically patrols your home for you.

Now, if you haven't heard of Ring or their doorbell cameras, they've already been at the centre of a bunch of controversies and privacy violations.

More ring privacy violations


spectrum.ieee.org...


for some reason this thing reminds me of the evil robots from wall-e

Yesterday, Ring, the smart home company owned by Amazon, announced the Always Home Cam, a “next-level indoor security” system in the form of a small autonomous drone. It costs US $250 and is designed to closely integrate with the rest of Ring’s home security hardware and software. Technologically, it’s impressive. But you almost certainly don’t want one.

Ring hasn’t revealed a lot of details on the drone itself, but here’s what we can puzzle out. My guess is that there’s a planar lidar right at the top that the drone uses to localize, and that it probably has a downward-looking camera as well. Ring says that you pre-map the areas that you want the drone to fly in, which works because the environment mostly doesn’t change. It’s also nice that you don’t have to worry about weather, and minimal battery life isn’t a big deal since you don’t need to fly for very long and the recharging dock is always close by. I like that the user can only direct the drone to specific waypoints rather than piloting it directly, which (depending on how well the drone actually performs) should help minimize crashes.

An important question to ask about any robot, especially one with a camera on it, is whether the benefits of such a system outweigh the risks. And before we get into why having an autonomous internet-connected flying security camera could be a privacy nightmare,

Fixed cameras can be avoided, whereas mobile ones can’t, which can make it impossible for a child, spouse, or roommate to get away from the camera,” he explains. This is not unique to Ring’s drone, but for better or worse, Ring is among the first to offer a dedicated mobile surveillance robot. “If mobile surveillance is normalized,” he adds, “my concern is that it will permit an abuser to check in on their partner wherever they are, erase surveillance blind spots, and remove excuses that the surveilled individual was merely ‘off camera.’ In other words, Ring is offering a more complete surveillance. And surveillance is a well-known component of domestic abuse.”

In some ways, the Ring drone is like a telepresence robot, where someone can put themselves into your personal, private space from anywhere, with a level of physical agency that’s unique to robots. The potential for abuse of this capability is drastically higher than for a system that can see but can’t move.

Ring, and its parent company Amazon, also don’t have the greatest track record on security and privacy. And it’s not just keeping your data safe from hackers: Ring specifically has cultivated close ties with law enforcement. As this July article from the EFF points out, “with a warrant, police could also circumvent the device’s owner and get footage straight from Amazon, even if the owner denied the police.” The EFF is talking about the Ring doorbell camera here, but it’s not clear to me that the Ring drone would be an exception.

The Ring drone can also give Amazon even more opportunities to collect data about you, now from a mobile platform that can move around inside of your house and even look out your windows. “It helps Amazon build your digital twin,” says Julie Carpenter, a research fellow in the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, in San Luis Obispo. “They’re using this type of consumer data to create a database version of who you are, and then using it to sell you things. The data collected is increasingly invasive, as with the Ring drone capabilities, such as mapping your home and collecting audio and dynamic aerial video of you and your family in your bedrooms, bathrooms, everywhere you live.”

Now this article touched on a few important concerns about these drones just from a personal, at home perspective.

But, that's just the start, soon these will be marketed to businesses, towns and cities, then someone gets the 'ingenious' idea to start linking them with covid tracing apps, fitting them with temperature sensors, etc.

Walk into a grocery store and your own personal security drone hovers around you keeping a watchful eye as you shop. You stepbin the door and you've got a fever, the drones come over, an alarm begins to sound.

Exit your house, the street watch drone detects movement and hovers over to investigate. You've got your mask on right? If not, i'm sure the proper authorities shall be alerted.

Manager of the apartment building sticks one on every floor that patrols the halls, quietly humming back and forth past your door.

The worst part about these products, is that everyone's been tricked into paying for their own personal spies.

They pay to have their data collected, they pay for what might as well be a wiretap on their home, they pay for big companies to invade the most private areas of their lives.

a reply to: dug88

Well i for one am just glad we don't live in a society full of nosy government/police/hackers/perverts/blackmailers/hostile foriegn nation types who would be salivating at the prospect of getting back doors into this tech(like they do with most)to poke around every corner of evrybodies homes at will.

Thank goodness for th...Oh,I give up

a reply to: dug88

...Please tell me this is satire,...

I have ring. This seems like overkill but still cool. Thieves, if they have half a brain they wear masks. Totally defeats a camera. You may know you are getting robbed but so what. Impossible to know who did it...meh. Seeing this scenario play out in my neighborhood. They have the video but they intruder/thief is wearing a mask. Only intel is how they got in. If they really want to make this bullet proof it needs to be armed with actual bullets. Activate the bullets when you go on vacation. Anyone that breaks in is shot dead. Audio to leave immediately or be killed. Totally fair and where this tech needs to go.

a reply to: dug88

I'm sure criminals hate those doorbell cams. I doubt most people give a damn if cops can use the video to catch thieves, in fact, that's the general idea.

I don't know about this new thing though. The doorbells you control who can or can't see it. I suspect these are also owner controlled.

Should people not use them because domestic abusers might use them? As far as others seeing the feed, if that's controllable by the user, I don't see the harm.

I suppose bad tenants/neighbors might not like them in a hall revealing their bad behavior, just like thieves hate the doorbell cams. Who cares what thieves think anyway, but I'd object if who sees it is not under user control.

originally posted by: Stupidsecrets
If they really want to make this bullet proof it needs to be armed with actual bullets. Activate the bullets when you go on vacation. Anyone that breaks in is shot dead. Audio to leave immediately or be killed. Totally fair and where this tech needs to go.

I was thinking poison darts would be cool.

a reply to: dug88

Greaaaaaaaattt.

When I was younger I was worried the TV could watch me, this thing is now even worse than what I imagined.

I have dogs.
No ring, NO WAY to this thing.

I was going to work in a "smart house" earlier this year. They removed everything, including the hub on the day we were going to start work then went off to one of their vacation houses. The "smart house" was retarded. Couldn't even turn on the frikken "smart light switches" or the "smart thermostat" without the hub. Called em up and told them to get their smart asses home with the hub and turn on their heat, before their smart pipes froze, and to get someone else to do the job. I hate all this new crap lol.

That is an awfully expensive cat toy. I suppose it is not that bad, the vet bill to extract plastic out of the cats throat will me much more than $250.00

Neet. If only we had a bunch of satellites and 5g, we could float a surveillance drone every 100 feet in a big grid across the world!!!

So much for needing to look over your shoulder, now we need to be looking up all the time?

Hey, domestic abuse is fine, as long as my Yoda bong doesn't get stolen again, right?

When they offer one that has little explosive projectiles on it that can be aimed and launched remotely from my cell phone and will penetrate the cranium of an intruder and explode his head, get back to me. Until then, not interested.

Another thought- how long before the burglars hack these things so they can inspect your property and plan their jobs in advance?