Ring to sell US$250 indoor drone camera in late January
A separate US$1,000 Rover Cam, based on Amazon’s Astro robot and aimed mainly at businesses, is due to ship in mid-December.
Amazon’s Ring plans to begin sales of its US$250 Ring Drone Cam in late January, Bloomberg reported, following an announcement more than six years earlier. The flying security camera is restricted to indoor use.
The device records 2K video and weighs about 165 grams. Flight time is five to eight minutes, after which it returns to its base. Recharging requires about eight minutes for each minute spent flying. Software prevents outdoor flights, which would violate US aviation rules.
Ring abandoned two previous designs. Jamie Siminoff, Ring’s founder and now an Amazon vice president, said additional sensors and computing capacity required a larger battery, increasing weight and reducing stability. Most processing was instead shifted to cloud-based AI. Takeoff and landing are autonomous, but nearly all other functions require Wi-Fi, including route planning and checking alerts sent by other Ring devices.
Ring also introduced the US$1,000 Rover Cam, a rebranded Amazon Astro robot. Shipments are scheduled for mid-December, with businesses the main target, 9to5Google reported. The drone disables its camera while docked. Ring says both products encrypt video by default.
