Alongside news of new Alexa devices, Amazon today unveiled a refresh of its Ring lineup including new cameras, alarms and more. The flagship addition for consumers is a new “pro-tier” security camera joining Ring’s radar-powered lineup, the Spotlight Cam Pro. However, the more interesting (or creepy?) news is Amazon’s plan to integrate its Ring Virtual Security Guard subscription service for third-party monitoring with its Amazon Astro robot.

Originally designed as a home helper, Amazon hadn’t been quite sure which direction it wanted to take its new robot. Now, it seems the company is testing out whether or not Astro could be used for security monitoring purposes.

The company says the new solution could make sense for those businesses that can’t afford an on-site security patrol but still want to keep an eye on their business after hours. Longer term, Amazon envisions a world where robots could complement or even take the place of security guards.

The integration as it stands today, however, will tie into Ring Alarm or Alarm Pro devices. When an alarm is triggered, the Astro robot could go investigate and observe the scene using its onboard camera. It can also be set to autonomously patrol a property when the Ring Alarm is set to “Away” mode. As a part of the Ring Virtual Security Guard service, the agents would also be able to remotely operate the robot when an alarm is triggered, allowing them to get a closer look at the scene, as well as use the Two-Way Talk feature to alert an intruder that the authorities have been called.

This seems like a far-fetched use case, to be sure — anyone daring to break into a property will not likely be scared off by the adorable Astro, though it could certainly catch them off guard momentarily. Amazon says it will begin testing this integration with a select group of small business customers in the coming months and will gather feedback.

Image Credits: Amazon

Among the more typical updates, the company also announced a new camera, with the Spotlight Cam Pro. The camera employs radar to measure the distance and angle of an object moving in front of the camera. Its ability to detect motion three-dimensionally leads to more refined and accurate alerts, Amazon claims. Radar also helps to power a “Bird’s Eye View” feature that provides an aerial map of movement across a property, to give the full picture of a motion event. A similar “Bird’s Evey Zones” feature was also recently added to Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 and Floodlight Cam Wired Pro, the company noted.

Image Credits: Amazon

Users can set their own 3D Motion Detection thresholds on the Spotlight Cam Pro, as well as customizable Motion Zones to trigger recordings and Privacy Zones to exclude areas.

It will be available for pre-order today in battery and plug-in configurations for $229.99. The solar-powered version is $249.99. The wired version isn’t yet available.

Amazon is also updating its Spotlight Cam Plus ($199.99) which now has a new look at is available with multiple power options including wired, plug-in, solar and battery.

Image Credits: Amazon

And it’s releasing the second generation of its Ring Alarm Panic Button ($29.99), designed to be either wall-mounted or placed on a flat surface, enabling customers to call for help, including medical or fire assistance.

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon’s other home security division, Blink, also announced new devices today, including the new Blink Mini Pan Tilt, an accessory for the Blink Mini security camera. This offers additional functionality with a 360-degree view of the room for $29.99. It’s also launching a smart floodlight, the Blink Wired Floodlight Camera, offering Privacy and Activity Zones, for $99.99. It will be available later this year.

Amazon’s Ring announces plan to use a robot for security patrols alongside new home security devices by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Hi again! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly recap the top stories from TechCrunch dot-com this week. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

Is Facebook for old people? If you’ve got a teenager around the house, you’ve probably heard them say as much. The most read story this week is on a Pew study that suggests this generation of teens has largely abandoned the platform in favor of Instagram/YouTube/TikTok/etc.; whereas in 2014 around 71% of teens used Facebook, the study says in 2022 that number has dropped down to 32%.

other stuff

Mark Cuban sued over crypto platform promotion: “A group of Voyager Digital customers filed a class-action suit in Florida federal court against Cuban, as well as the basketball team he owns, the Dallas Mavericks,” writes Anita, “alleging their promotion of the crypto platform resulted in more than 3.5 million investors losing $5 billion collectively.”

A troubling layoff trend: While tech layoffs might, maybe, hopefully be showing signs of slowing, Natasha M points out a troubling trend: some companies are announcing layoffs only to announce another round of layoffs just weeks or months later.

SpaceX launches South Korea’s first moon mission: South Korea has launched its first-ever lunar mission — a lunar orbiter “launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket” ahead of plans to land on the surface some time in 2030.

Twilio gets hacked: While it’s unclear exactly what data was taken, Twilio says the data of at least 125 customers was accessed after some of its employees were tricked “into handing over their corporate login credentials” by an intense SMS phishing attack.

Amazon’s bizarre new show: Think “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” but made up of user-submitted footage from Ring security cameras. By now most people probably realize their every step is recorded on a security camera or three — but doesn’t embracing it as Entertainment like this feel kind of…icky?

Haus hits hard times: Haus, a company that ships specialized low-alcohol drinks direct to consumers, is looking for a buyer after a major investor backed out of its Series A. The challenge? Investor diligence for an alcohol company can take months, and Haus just doesn’t “have the cash to support continued operations at this time.”

Image Credits: Haus

audio stuff

How clean is the air you breathe every day? Aclima co-founder Davida Herzl wants everyone to be able to answer that question, and sat down with Jordan and Darrell on this week’s Found podcast to explain her mission. Meanwhile on Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn and Anita explain the U.S. gov’s crackdown of the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, and the Equity crew spent Wednesday’s show discussing whether the turbulent market conditions of late will mean we see fewer early-stage endeavors in the months ahead.

additional stuff

What lies behind the paywall? A lot of really good stuff! Here’s what TechCrunch+ subscribers were reading most this week…

Building an MVP when you can’t code: Got a great idea but can’t code? You can still get the ball rolling. Magnus Grimeland, founder of the early-stage VC firm Antler, lays out some of the key principles to keep in mind.

Are SaaS valuations staging a recovery?: “…the good news for software startup founders,” writes Alex, “is that the period when the deck was being increasingly stacked against them may now be behind us.”

VCs and AI-powered investment tools: Do VCs want AI-powered tools to help them figure out where to put their money? Kyle Wiggers takes a look at the concept, and why not all VCs are on board with it.

Amazon is shutting down its smart home camera, the Cloud Cam, and its companion apps, the company informed customers via a recent email. Launched in 2017, the nearly five-year-old Cloud Cam was one of Amazon’s first entries into the area of Alexa-connected home security devices, arriving just ahead of the retailer’s acquisition of connected camera and doorbell maker, Blink, and soon thereafter, smart doorbell maker Ring. Now, Amazon says it’s now focusing its efforts on Ring and Blink, which is why it no longer intends to support Cloud Cam.

“With your help over the last five years, Cloud Cam has served as a reliable indoor security camera and a hub for Amazon Key-compatible smart locks that work with Alexa,” the email to existing customers states. “As the number of Alexa smart home devices continues to grow, we are focusing efforts on Ring, Blink, and other technologies that make your home smarter and simplify your everyday routines.”

The email goes on to inform customers that, starting on Dec. 2, 2022, they’ll no longer be able to use Cloud Cam or its associated apps. Until then, users will still be able to download their video recordings. But as of the shutdown date, all video history will be deleted and the service will no longer function.

Fortunately for impacted customers, they won’t just be left with a useless device as a result of the shutdown, after having paid over $100 to purchase their Cloud Cam smart camera. Instead, Amazon is doing the right thing in this case by offering a replacement device for free. The company says it will provide Cloud Cam users with a complimentary Blink Mini and one-year Blink Subscription Plus Plan. The Blink Mini is an indoor security camera with 1080p HD video, 2.4 GHz Wifi connectivity, night vision, motion detection, two-way audio, and, like Cloud Cam, it works with Alexa devices.

These specs are similar to Cloud Cam, which had also offered 1080p HD video, night vision, and two-way audio. However, Cloud Cam’s subscription plan differs from Blink’s. Today, Cloud Cam users can choose from three priced tiers of $6.99, $9.99, or $19.99 per month, based on how many cameras they have (3, 5, or 10) and how long they want to store video clips — either a week, two weeks or a month, respectively. Blink’s subscriptions, meanwhile, include a free tier without video history, or a $3/mo or $10/mo paid plan — Basic or Plus — each of which offers a 60-day unlimited video history. But only the Plus subscription allows for more than one camera.

Amazon said it will send out a separate email ahead of Cloud Cam’s shutdown to inform customers how to claim their complimentary replacement device.

In the meantime, Cloud Cam users can back up their videos from the “Recorded Clips” section in the app’s top-right menu. They’ll need to click on each video and then click the Download icon to save the video. They can also delete recordings from here or from Amazon’s “Manage Your Content and Devices” online hub.

Back in 2019, Amazon first announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol and network for connecting smart devices — and keeping them online when your own WiFi network, for example, goes down, by piggybacking on your neighbor’s network. Since last year, Amazon has been turning its Echo devices into Sidewalk bridges and select Ring and Tile devices can now access the network. Now, Amazon is launching its first professional-grade Sidewalk device meant to cover large areas like a university campus or park.

The full name for the new device is a mouthful: the Amazon Sidewalk Bridge Pro by Ring. It could be installed inside but is mostly meant to be set up outside — and ideally on a high spot — and can cover hundreds of devices up to five miles away (depending on the local circumstances, of course).

To test the devices, Amazon partnered with Arizona State University, which will install these new Sidewalk bridges on light poles on its Tempe campus. The University Technology Office plans to use it as a proof-of-concept with plans to connect sunlight and temperature sensors, CO2 detectors and particle counters.

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon is also partnering with Thingy, an IoT company that specializes in environmental monitoring, to install its air quality monitoring tools to alert first responders of potential wildfires.

“Amazon Sidewalk Bridge Pro brings us the power of [Long Range] in a massive number of needed locations, easy integration with our existing applications in AWS, and trusted security for the devices and applications. We are very excited to work with Amazon Sidewalk to measure air quality and wildfires with our sensors and help solve the connectivity challenges for these critical applications,” said Scott Waller, CEO and co-founder of Thingy.

But beyond the device itself, it’s the fact that Amazon continues to invest in the Sidewalk ecosystem that’s most important here.

“We’re building a network, we’re enabling actors to help the IoT industry,” Stefano Landi, the director of Amazon Sidewalk, told me. “At the end of the day, if we want to drive the proliferation of smart and connected devices everywhere, you need to have the right network. If you talk to IoT developers today, yes, there are many options, but either it’s very expensive, from a connectivity perspective vs. cellular, or the range is limited, or it’s draining the battery, or it’s just that the overall development cycle is too complex. So we felt that we should invest and that’s what we’ve done and we continue to invest in enabling these networks so that the IoT community can build any type of application: consumer, enterprise, public sector. ”

Landi noted that only a few months after launching the network, the company now has very strong residential coverage in more than 100 major U.S. metro areas. In part, of course, that’s because there are a lot of Echo devices in America’s homes and unless users opt out, most modern Echo smart speakers now have Sidewalk enabled by default. Not everybody is comfortable with that, though Amazon would argue that it designed its network to be privacy-first and that it won’t use a lot of bandwidth (it’s mostly for passing alerts, not your Ring camera’s video feed, after all). But it’s a fair guess that most users aren’t even aware of Sidewalk to begin with.

Covering a residential area is one thing, though. With the Sidewalk Bridge Pro, businesses can now also cover entire swaths of land to connect their sensors. There seems to be some demand for this, because Landi noted that “more than a few thousand companies” have already reached out to Amazon to ask about commercial use cases — mostly in connection with AWS IoT, the company’s cloud-based managed IoT service. A lot of this interest, Landis said, is coming from companies that want to build public sector solutions, mostly around smart city services.

“The Sidewalk Bridge Pro is a professional-grade bridge that is exactly tailored to be deployed outside of those [residential areas],” explained Landis. “So that now you have coverage pretty much everywhere. Think about commercial centers, parks, city parks, state parks, municipal parks, wildness areas, commercial area, and so on. Now you really bring that ubiquitous connectivity, so when you’re there, building a solution, you know that coverage is going to be pretty much anywhere that you need it.”

Landis noted that while he expects most users to install the bridge outdoors, it can also used indoors to cover a warehouse or a large store. And even though it’s explicitly called the ‘Pro,” we shouldn’t expect the company to launch a consumer-style “non-pro” version anytime soon. That’s what the Echo and Ring devices are for, after all.

Security cameras, for better or for worse, are part and parcel of how many businesses monitor spaces in the workplace for security or operational reasons. Now, a startup is coming out of stealth with funding for tech designed to make the video produced by those cameras more useful. Spot AI has built a software platform that “reads” that video footage — regardless of the type or quality of camera it was create on — and makes video produced by those cameras searchable by anyone who needs it, both by way of words, and by way of images in the frames shot by the cameras.

Spot AI has been quietly building its technology and customer base since 2018 and it already has hundreds of customers and thousands of users. Notably, its customers reach well beyond tech early adopters, spanning from SpaceX to transportation company Cheeseman, Mixt and Northland Cold Storage.

Now that Spot AI is releasing its product more generally, it is disclosing $22 million in funding, a $20 million Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, and a previous $2 million seed round that was led by Bessemer Venture Partners (which also participated in the Series A). Other investors are not being disclosed.

The gap in the market that Spot AI is aiming to fill is the one created by some of the more legacy technology used by organizations today: a huge amount of security cameras — in 2019 estimated at 70 million in the U.S. alone, although that also includes public video surveillance — are in use in the workplace today, usually set up around entrances to buildings, in office buildings themselves. in factories and other campus environments, and so on, both to track the movement of people as well as the state of inanimate objects and locations used by the business (for example, machines, doorways, rooms, and so on).

The issue is that many of these camera are very old, analogue set-ups; and whether they are older or newer hardware, the video that is produced on them is of a very basic nature. It’s there for single-purpose uses; it is not indexable and older video gets erased; and often it doesn’t even work as it is supposed to. Indeed, security cam footage is neglected enough that people usually only realize how badly something works or didn’t work at all just when they actually need to see some footage (only to discover it is not there). And some of the more sophisticated solutions that do exist are very expensive and unlikely to be adopted quickly by the wider market of very non-tech, analogue companies.

On top of all this, security cameras have a very bad rap, not helped by their multi-faceted, starring role in video surveillance systems. Backlash happens both because of how they get used in public environments — perhaps in the name of public safety, but still there as quiet observers and recorders of everything we do whether we want them there or not — and in how private security video footage gets appropriated in the aftermath of being recorded. In those cases, some of that is intentional, such as when Amazon’s Ring has shared footage with police. And some is unintentional — see the disclosure of hackers accessing and posting video from another startup building video systems for enterprises, Verkada.

Spot AI is entering the above market with all good intentions, CEO and co-founder Tanuj Thapliyal said in an interview. The startup’s theory is that security cameras are already important and the point is to figure out how to use them better, for more productive purposes that can cover not just security, but health and safety and operations working as they should.

“If you make the video data [produced by these cameras] more useful and accessible to more people in the workplace, then you transform it from this idea of surveillance to the idea of video intelligence,” said Thapliyal, who co-founded the company with Rish Gupta and Sud Bhatija. “It can help you make all sorts of important decisions.” Its ethos seems to come out of the idea that these cameras are here, so we need to find better ways of using them more effectively and responsibly.

The Spot AI system currently comes in three parts. The first is a set of cameras that Spot AI offers as an option to any of its customers, free of charge, currently to keep even if a customer decides to cease working with Spot AI. These cameras 5MP, IP-based devices, designed to upgrade the quality of video feeds, although Thapliyal points out that the Spot AI system can actually work with footage from any camera at all if necessary.

The second part is a network video recorder that captures video from all of the cameras you have deployed. These are edge computers, fitted with AI chips that process and begin reading and categorizing the video that is captured, turning it into data that can be then searched through the third part of Spot AI’s system.

That third part is a dashboard that both lets users search through a company’s video troves by keywords or processes, and to create frames and alerts on current streams to note when something has occurred in the frame (for example, a door opening, or a person entering a space, or even something not working as it should).

The idea is that this part of the video service will become more sophisticated over time (and indeed there are more features being added in even going from stealth into GA). While there are a number of IoT plays out there that are designed to help monitor connected devices, the pitch with Spot AI is that it can be more attuned to how connected and not-connected things are moving about in physical spaces, regardless of whether they involve connected devices or not.

I asked Thapliyal about the security issues reported about Verkada — both the incident involving malicious hackers earlier this year, and another accusation going back years about how some employees at the company itself abused its video systems. The company is close enough in targeting similar markets — and coincidentally both have a connection to Meraki, a WiFi tech company acquired by Cisco, in that both are founded by ex-Meraki employees — that I couldn’t help but wonder how Spot AI might insulate itself from similar issues, something that customers presumably also ask.

“Verkada sells hardware, and their cloud software only works with their hardware,” he responded, adding that “They’re pretty expensive; up to a few thousand dollars per camera.” (Spot AI’s cameras are free, while the deployments begin at $2,200.) “They also sell more hardware for building security – like access control, environmental sensors, etc,” he added, calling it, “a terrific set of products with terrific software.”

But, he noted, “We’re not in the hardware business. Our only focus is to make video easier to access and use. We only charge for software, and give away all camera hardware for free if customers want them. Our bet is that if we can help more customers get more value out of video, then we can earn more of their business through a software subscription.”

And on security, the company’s concept is very different, built around a zero-trust architecture “that siloes access away between customers and requires multi-factor authentication for any systems access,” he said.

“Like other technology companies, we are always reviewing, challenging, and improving our cybersecurity. Our goal is to provide a great web dashboard, and let customers choose what’s best for them. For example, cloud backup of video is an optional feature that customers can opt into, at no extra charge. The product fully works with private and local storage already included in the subscription. This is particularly helpful for healthcare customers that have HIPAA requirements.”

It’s good to see the company having a position, and product set, that is aiming to address issues around security. The proof will be in the pudding, and it still remains predicated on the basic idea of video surveillance being something that can be used without being abused. That could make it a non-starter for many.

All that aside, though, it seems that for investors, the main message is how the company has created a tech platform with enough utility that it is finding traction in as wide a way as possible, including with non-tech customers.

“There is a flood of new users and companies driving daily decisions using their cameras. In an industry crowded with legacy vendors, Spot AI’s software-focused model is by far the simplest choice for customers,” said Tomasz Tunguz, MD at Redpoint Ventures, in a statement.

“Today, only the world’s biggest businesses have access to proprietary AI camera systems, while most small and midsize businesses are left behind,” added Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Spot AI’s easy-to-use technology is accelerating the consumption of video data across all businesses, big and small.”

Amazon held an event this morning, and wow-oh-wow did they announce a lot. Smart thermostats! Flying security cameras! Robot companions!

Didn’t tune in or have time to catch it all? Here’s a recap of the biggest news:

Smart Thermostat

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon is building a thermostat, partnering with Honeywell to get it done. It’ll be Alexa-compatible, of course, allowing you to say things like “Alexa, turn off the AC.” At just $60 (about half the cost of cheapest Nest), they’re definitely aiming to undercut the market here.

Echo Show 15

Image Credits: Amazon

A wall-mountable Echo Show that looks like a framed picture, meant to sort of just blend into the room while providing one-tap access to things like reminders, calendars, and security camera views. Works in portrait or landscape made. It’ll cost $250

Custom Sound Detection

You’ll now be able to teach Alexa to recognize new sounds and perform actions when it hears them. The example given was teaching Alexa to recognize the beeping sound your fridge makes when it’s left open and send you a notification.

Hey Disney

Image Credits: Amazon/Disney

Amazon’s voice assistant tech is coming to “tens of thousands” of Walt Disney World Resort hotel rooms, allowing guests to say “Hey Disney” and ask about things like when the park opens, when the next shuttle will arrive, or request towels. Because if there’s one thing people love in their hotel rooms, it’s microphones. Right? Anyone?

Amazon Glow

Image Credits: Amazon

Leaning hard into the “video calling with the grandparents” part of the pandemic, Amazon is building an interactive tablet/projector thing for kids and families. The 8″ screen connects the kid with a remote family member, while a built-in projector beams a game onto the touch-sensitive surface in front of it. The family member on the other end of the video call can play along while they chat, interacting with the game via tablet. Amazon is working on games in partnership with Disney, Mattel, and Nickelodeon. The “early access price” will be $250, but no word of what it’ll cost after that.

Halo View

Amazon dives deeper into the exercise/health space, this time launching a waterproof, $80 Fitbit-style wristband with a built-in display. It’ll also launch Halo Fitness, a collection of hundreds of streamable video workouts, and Halo Nutrition, which is meant to help with meal planning and grocery shopping.

The flying security camera

Remember that wild drone camera that Ring announced last year? The one that flies around your house to record footage while you’re away? They initially didn’t announce when it would actually be available (presumably because they wanted to wait until everyone got their Half-Life references out of the way,) but the company says it’s going up for purchase now on an invite-only basis.

Ring Virtual Security Guard

Ring will launch a subscription monitoring service for their doorbells and outdoor cameras; once you’ve given them access to a specific camera, Ring’s “Virtual Security Guard agents” can respond to alerts by tuning into the live feed, communicating with anyone they see, triggering the on-device siren, or calling emergency services.

Ring Jobsite Security

Ring is also building a special kit of hardware purpose-tuned for construction and contractor job sites; it can help do things like monitor if gates are open/closed, and comes in a fancy hardcase for moving the system from site to site. And it’s all orange, because construction!

New Blink stuff

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon acquired Blink in 2017. Rather than merging it into Ring, Blink lives on as the generally more affordable line. This morning they announced a $50 smart doorbell with 1080p video and two years of battery life, a $140 outdoor floodlight security camera, and an optional $40 solar panel add-on for said floodlight.

Astro

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon is making a $999 robot that will roll around your house like a little Alexa-powered Wall-E. From house mapping to security capabilities, there’s a whole lot going on here, so you should probably check out Brian Heater’s deep dive here.

Amazon today announced a new subscription service called “Alexa Together,” designed for families with aging family members who are still living independently, but who may need extra support. The $19.99 per month subscription expands on Amazon’s existing product, Alexa Care Hub, an earlier investment in elder care, by taking many of Care Hub’s features and adding on new protections, like an urgent response feature and access to a professional emergency helpline.

The company in November 2020 first introduced Care Hub, an option in the Alexa mobile app, which has allowed family members to keep an eye on older parents and loved ones — with their permission — in order to receive general information about their activities and to be alerted if the loved one has called out for help.

Image Credits: Amazon

With Alexa Together, family members can continue access features like care alerts, which are designed to keep family members in the loop when an aging family member asks Alexa for help.

Starting early next year, Alexa Together will also make it possible for multiple people to provide support for a loved one — which is useful in situations where siblings may split the duties of caring for mom or dad, for example. Even nearby neighbors could be added to the support system, so they could check on a customer’s family member in the case of an emergency.

Image Credits: Amazon

Caregivers can also do things like set up reminders on loved ones’ devices or link to a music service so they can easily play their favorite songs, Amazon says. And they can add contacts to the family member’s Alexa account, so they can call friends and family hands-free.

The new subscription also introduces an urgent response feature which enables hands-free, 24/7 access to an emergency helpline. That way, if an elderly family member takes a fall at home or has another type of emergency, they can just ask Alexa to call for help.

Alexa will then do so and alert all the family members, neighbors and anyone else connected to the account.

The subscription will be offered for free for 6 months, then is a $19.99 per month paid subscription if you continue.

Ring is just one part of Amazon’s annual devices and services event this year, but they’re bringing a lot of updates, including a new Pro Alarm suite that includes refreshed hardware and integrated Eero Wi-Fi 6 router capabilities. They also have a new service offering called ‘Virtual Security Guard’ that basically keeps an eye on your Ring feeds the way you would in case you can’t, and they’re improving alerts on their existing Doorbells and Cams with smarter event recognition.

Ring Alarm Pro

Ring Alarm Pro is an upgraded home security system suite that includes a base station with Eero built-in. The base station doubles as a Wi-Fi 6 router that is mesh capable for linking up to other modern Eero hardware (which is some nice consumer brand synergy for another Amazon acquisition). Ring Alarm Pro also includes 24/7 backup internet thanks to 3GB of included cellular data use per month, with extra data available at $3/1GB. Ring’s Power Pack accessories can be attached to the base station to keep the internet up and running in case of a pwower outage, too.

The Alarm Pro base station also has a microSD card slot with support for cards with up to 64GB in capacity, which can provide local video storage for your connected Ring cameras and doorbells.

Like Ring’s previous alarm products, it works with their motion sensors, door and window sensors, and fire and moisture sensors and more. The company is also introducing a Pro tier of its subscription product ($20/month), which is how you can gain access to that cellular backup service as well as professional monitoring and (synergy again!) ad blocking, content filtering and threat protection services for your home internet via Eero.

Virtual Security Guard

Not to be confused with its new Pro tier subscription (which is offered alongside its existing, $10/month option), is a new separate subscription service called ‘Virtual Security Guard’ that aims to replicate the benefits of having an onsite security guard.

Basically, this adds an additional level of scrutiny in terms of professional monitoring, through a partnership with monitoring company Rapid Response. Rapid Response personnel will keep an eye on the Ring camera and doorbell feeds you specific if you’re a member, responding to motion alerts and providing interventions including triggering sirens and lights, using two-way talk features, and even escalating to actually dispatching emergency services should they judge that that’s required.

Ring is quick to point out the ways in which Virtual Security Guard remains wholly within the control of the individuals subscribing; cameras are opted out by default, for instance, so that a user selects which will be monitored and when. Agents also can’t activate the cameras unless they’re green lighted to be monitored in either Home or Away mode as specified by a user. They can only see real-time videos via Live View, when a motion event is detected, and videos are not saved for download or any other use by the agents. Finally, any Privacy Zones set up by a user are hidden for monitoring agents, and the Ring app also shows live when Virtual Security agents are monitoring feeds, and any past Live Views seen by the agents will also be clearly marked.

There’s no word on specific pricing here, but it sounds like it’s going to be a premium since it requires that a user have a professional monitoring plan in place already. They also have to have an outdoor, hardwired video doorbell or security cam from Ring in place in order to use the program, and it’s going to be available on an invite-only basis starting later this year.

Custom Event and Package Alerts

Image Credits: Ring

Ring has a lot of pretty flashy announcements this year, including its flying drone actually shipping, but the news that might be the most useful to most of its users is the introduction of new smart alerts, including Package Alerts and Custom Event Alerts.

Package Alerts do exactly what they say, offering you the ability to specify a zone of your choosing and get an alert anytime a package is present in that zone. So you could set it up to watch your front step or your porch, for instance, and get an alert about anything Amazon (for instance) drops off there.

Those are going to be available to anyone with Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 and Ring Video Doorbell (2020 model year) devices with roll-out starting today — provided you have a Ring Protect Plan.

Custom Event Alerts apply for Spotlight Battery Cam users, again provide they have a Ring Protect Plan, and will offer a bit more custom flexibility. So you can, for instance, use a still of your garage door closed as captured by your Ring, and a still of it open, and teach it to differentiate between those two states and alert you about state changes when they happen. Ring mentions this can work with gates and doors, and other types of state changes as defined by users. It’s going to start rolling out a bit later than Package Alerts, with availability expected “in the coming months.”

Ring Jobsite Security

Image Credits: Ring

Last but not least, Ring is targeting the contractor and job site management crowd with Jobsite Security, a product based around the Ring Alarm Pro that tweaks it for professional use with upgrades like Outdoor Contact sensors for keeping track of gate open/closed status, for instance. There’s also a lot of Safety Orange involved, which reflects the target audience (pun intended because safety orange is in part used for its reflectivity).

Jobsite Security is a team-up with The Home Depot, which will sell it exclusively starting at $399.99. It’s a smart extension of the company’s brand beyond the domestic sphere, and maybe a precursor to more B2B efforts to come.

Last year, Ring announced at futuristic (slightly dystopian?) take on in-home security with its Always Home Cam, a drone equipped with sensors and a camera that can navigate the interior of your home along custom paths laid out by a user, in response to triggers including Ring Alarm sensors, or a manual command from the Ring app itself. Now, the concept becomes a reality as it starts shipping out to users in the United States — though it’s an invite-only launch at first.

Ring revealed the $249 Always Home Cam just over a year ago, and it said at the time it would ship in 2021, which it now is. The small drone only measures around 5″ by 7″ by 7″, which should make it more nimble when navigating your halls. The idea behind the device was to provide a way to essentially have a camera everywhere inside your home when you’re away, without requiring that you actually buy a whole bunch of individual cameras and put them in every corner.

Ring stresses that the Always Home Cam will only take flight when it’s directed to do so by a user, either via pre-set trigger or manually. It also doesn’t activate its cameras or record at all by default when it’s at rest in its base, which the company says is an intentional decision choice aimed at increasing “privacy and security.”

If you’re inclined to get in on the ground floor of the next generation of aerial domestic surveillance, you can go ahead and request an invite from Ring starting today to get on the list.

Amazon is preparing to roll out a trio of new features that will allow consumers to further personalize their Alexa experience by helping train the Alexa A.I. using simple tools. In a few months’ time, consumers will be able to teach Alexa to do things like identifying specific sounds in their household, such as a ringing doorbell or instant pot’s chime, for example. Or, for Ring users, the A.I. could notice when something has visually changed — like when a door that’s meant to be closed is now standing open. Plus, consumers will be able to more explicitly direct Alexa to adjust to their personal preferences around things like favorite sports teams, preferred weather app, or food preferences.

The features were introduced today at Amazon’s fall event, where the company is announcing its latest Echo devices and other new hardware.

The new sound identifying feature builds on something Alexa already offers, called Alexa Guard. This feature can identify certain sounds — like glass breaking or a fire or carbon monoxide alarm — which can be helpful for people who are away from home or for those who are hard of hearing or Deaf, as it helps them to know there is a potential emergency taking place. With an upgraded subscription, consumers can even play the sound of a barking dog when a smart camera detects motion outside.

Now, Amazon is thinking of how Alexa’s sound detection capability could be used for things that aren’t necessarily emergencies.

Image Credits: Amazon

With a new feature, consumers will be able to train Alexa to hear a certain type of sound that matters to them. This could be a crock pot’s beeping, the oven timer, a refrigerator that beeps when left open, a garage door opening, a doorbell’s ring, the sound of water running, or anything else that makes a noise that’s easy to identify because it generally sounds the same from time to time.

By providing Alexa with 6 to 10 samples, Alexa will “learn” what this noise is — a big reduction from the thousands of samples Amazon has used in the past to train Alexa about other sounds. Customers will be able teach Alexa a new custom sound directly from their Echo device or through the Alexa mobile app, Amazon says.

However, the enrollment and training process will take place in the cloud. But detection of the sound going forward will happen on the device itself, and Amazon will not send the audio to cloud after enrollment.

Once trained, users can then choose to kick off their own notifications or routines whenever Alexa hears that noise. Again, this could help from an accessibility standpoint or with elder care, as Alexa could display a doorbell notification on their Fire TV, for instance. But it could also just serve as another way to start everyday routines — like when the garage door sounds, Alexa could trigger a personalized “I’m Home” routine that turns on the lights and starts your favorite music.

Amazon says Custom Sound Event Detection will be available next year.

Along similar lines, consumers will also be able to train the A.I. in their Ring cameras to identify a region of interest in the camera feed, then determine if that area has changed. This change has to be fairly binary for now — like a shed door that’s either open or closed. It may not be able to handle something more specific where there is a lot of variation.

This functionality, called “Custom Event Alerts,” will start rolling out to Ring Spotlight Cam Battery customers in the coming months.

Finally, another Alexa feature will allow the smart assistant to learn a user’s preferences related to food, sports, or skill providers. (Skills are the third-party voice apps that run on Alexa devices.) Consumers will be able to say something like, “Alexa, learn my preferences,” to start teaching Alexa. But the learning can be done in subtler ways, too. For instance, if you ask Alexa for nearby restaurants, you could then say something like, “Alexa, some of us are vegetarian” to have steakhouses removed from the suggestions.

Meanwhile, after Alexa learns about your favorite sports teams, the A.I. will include more highlights from the teams you’ve indicated you care about when you ask for sports highlights.

And after you tell Alexa which third-party skill you’d like to use, the A.I. assistant will default to using that skill in the future instead of its own native responses.

For now, though, only third-party weather skills are supported. But Amazon wants to expand this to more skills over time. This could help to address skills’ lower usage, as people can’t remember which skills they want to launch. It would allow for a more “set it and forget it” type of customization, where you find a good skill, set it as your default, then just speak using natural language (e.g. “What’s the weather?”) without having to remember the skill by name going forward.

Amazon says that this preference data is only associated with the customer’s anonymized customer ID, and it can be adjusted. For example, if a vegetarian goes back to meat, they could say “Alexa, I’m not a vegetarian” the next time Alexa returns their restaurant suggestions. The data is not being used to customize Amazon.com shopping suggestions, the company said.

This preference teaching will be available before the end of the year.

Amazon says these features represent further steps towards its goal of bringing what it calls “ambient intelligence” to more people.

Ambient A.I., noted Rohit Prasad, SVP and head scientist for Alexa, “can learn about you and adapt to your needs, instead of you having to conform to it.”

“Alexa, to me, is not just a spoken language service. Instead, it is an ambient intelligence service that is available on many devices around you to understand the state of the environment, and even acts proactively on your behalf,” he said.

From new Ring flying indoor drone cameras to an adorable new kids version of one of its most popular Amazon home products, Jeff Bezos’ Seattle retailer unveiled a slew of new hardware goodies just ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Echo updates

Image Credits: Amazon

Amazon kicked off its latest hardware showcase by unveiling a new version of the company’s Echo devices, which now include spherical speakers (with a version for kids featuring cute animal graphics). Amazon also unveiled an updated, more personalized Echo capabilities and a new tracking feature for its Show 10 that mirrors Facebook’s Portal in its ability to follow users as they move around a room.

Ring’s new things

Ring also had plenty to pitch at the Amazon hardware show. The security camera company is updating its line with the Always Home Cam, a diminutive drone that can be scheduled to fly preset paths, which users can determine themselves.

It also rolled out new hardware for the automotive market with three different devices focused on car owners. A Ring Car Alarm that will retail for $59.99; and the Car Cam and Car Connect will both be $199.99. Ring Car Alarm provides basic features that work with the Ring app, sending alerts to trigger a series of potential responses. The alarm also integrates with other Ring devices or Amazon Alexa hardware and connects using Amazon’s low-bandwidth Sidewalk wireless network protocol.

Meanwhile, the Car Cam allows users to check in on their car via video as long as users are in range of a wifi network, or opt-in to the additional LTE companion plan Ring is selling. The cam also includes an Emergency Crash Assist feature that alerts first responders, and a recording feature that turns on if a user says “Alexa, I’m being pulled over”. Finally, the car connect is an API that manufacturers, starting with Tesla, can use to provide Ring customers with mobile alerts for events detected around vehicles or watch footage recorded with onboard cameras.

Ring also added new opt-in end-to-end video encryption for those users who want it.

New ways to Fire TV

Image Credits: Amazon

The company’s TV platform got several updates. The biggest is probably the addition of the new, lower cost Fire TV Stick Lite at $29.99. For $39.99, meanwhile, you can pick up the new Fire TV Stick, which features a process that’s 50% faster. The platform is also adding Video Calling — a nice addition in the era of working from home — along with a new, improved layout.

Amazon goes ga-ga for gaming

Last, but certainly not least, Amazon announced its new game-streaming platform, Luna.

The long-awaited gaming competitor to Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud is launching an early access version at a price of $5.99 per-month, the company said. Users will be able to stream titles wirelessly without downloading games and can play across PC, Mac, and iOS (via the web).

Initially, the company will have more than 50 titles in the Luna+ app, including at least one Sonic title and Remedy Entertainment’s control. There’s a partnership with Ubisoft in the works, but access to those games may require a separate subscription.

Ring built its entire business on reinventing the doorbell – and now it’s taking a similar approach to the humble home security camera, with the Ring Always Home Cam, set to be available sometime next year. You might not guess from its name, but this security camera is actually mobile: It’s a drone that flies autonomously throughout your home, to provide you with the view you want of whatever room you want, without having to have video cameras installed in multiple locations throughout your house.

The Always Home Cam is a diminutive drone that can be scheduled to fly preset paths, which you lay out as a user. The drone can’t actually be manually flown, and it begins recording only once its in flight (the camera lens is actually physically blocked while it’s docked) – both features the company says will help ensure it operates strictly with privacy in mind. Always Home Cam is also designed intentionally to produce an audible hum while in use, to alert anyone present that it’s actually moving around and recording.

As you’d expect, the Always Home Cam doesn’t have the exposed rotors you’d see on a drone designed for use in outdoor open spaces. It has a plastic border and grills that enclose those for safety. It’s also small, at 5″x 7″x7″, which is useful for safety of both people and household objects.

I spoke to Ring founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff about why they decided to create such an ambitious, unorthodox home security camera – especially given their track record of relatively down-to-Earth, tech-enabled versions of tried-and-tested home hardware like doorbells and floodlights. He said that it actually came out of user feedback – something he still personally pays close attention to, even now that Ring is part of the larger corporate apparatus of Amazon . Siminoff said that a lot of the feedback he was seeing was from customers who wished they’d either been home or been able to see when some specific thing happened at a specific place in their house, or that they wanted a camera for particular room, but only for certain times – and then a different camera in a different room for others.

“It’s not practical to have a camera at every angle in every room of the home,” he said. “Even if you had unlimited resources, I think it’s still not practical. What I love about the Always Home Cam is that it really does solve this problem of being one cam for all – it allows you to now see every angle of the home, in every part of the home.”

Drones are also not Ring’s main business, and yet the Always Home Cam will be available at the relatively low price of $249 when it becomes available, despite the technical challenges of creating a small aircraft able to operate indoors safely, and fully autonomously. I asked Siminoff how Ring was able to achieve that price point in a category that’s outside its core expertise, with a design developed fully in-house.

“As the technology has kind of aged, a lot of these parts come down in price,” he said. “There’s also a lot of price compression happening because auto manufacturers are using a lot of these parts now at higher volumes, because to have an autonomous drone, you need some similar things to autonomous cars. Obviously, it’s not the same exact parts, but so all of those costs have been coming down, and we were able to go with a fresh perspective to it. But I also challenged the team when we came up with this, that this has to be affordable.”

The Ring Always Home Cam will also work with Ring’s existing suite of products, including Ring Alarm, to automatically fly a pre-set path when an alarm is triggered. You’re able then to stream the video live to your mobile device via the Ring app. In many ways, it does seem like a natural extension of the Ring ecosystem of products and services, but at the same time, it also seems like something out of science fiction. I asked Siminoff if he thinks consumers are ready to take this kind of technology seriously as something that’s part of their daily lives.

“I think it is sort of something that is, in some ways, way out there,” he acknowledged. “What I love about it, though, is that it’s what happens when you just take the constraints away of this linear thinking. I love that we are doing stuff from really looking at the need backwards, and then what technology exists, and ask what can we build? It’s really exciting for me to be able to do somethin,g and put our stamp on something that is an industry first.”