Amazon have announced that their acquisition of Ring is complete. The Ring video doorbell enables home owners to see who is at their door from their smartphone if when they’re not at home.
“Our mission to reduce crime in neighbourhoods has been at the core of everything we do at Ring. Together with Amazon, we will accelerate our mission dramatically by connecting more neighbours globally and making our security devices and systems more affordable and accessible. The entire Ring team is excited to continue working hard to create products and services that bring real benefits to people’s lives and build safer communities for all our neighbours.”
– Jamie Siminoff, CEO and Chief Inventor of Ring
Amazon’s relationship with Ring began in 2016 through the Alexa Fund, the company’s investment arm to support companies with cutting-edge technologies that are innovating with voice. The investment provided a strong foundation for Ring to be able to lean into new Alexa APIs and capabilities, and develop a new Alexa skill that allows customers to use voice to view camera feeds directly from Echo Show and Fire TV.
Ring is interesting as it parallels Amazon Key although the two product lines are currently not connected – Ring isn’t part of the selection available under Amazon Key which enables you to give anyone from delivery drivers to cleaners and visitors access to your house remotely. Ring could be viewed as a lower cost entry level solution without the need to replace your door locks but still, like Amazon Key, enabling you to see who is visiting your property.
To celebrate the acquisition, Amazon and Ring have dropped the price of the Ring Video Doorbell to $99.99 (previously $132.99) in the US. In the UK there’s no discount but the price is lower than the normal US price at £89.00.
Whilst acquiring a company you invested in early and has proved a profitable long term investment makes sense, for Amazon it’s much more than that. Ring will doubtless be tied ever closer into their Alexa range of products and it would be no surprise to see Ring combined with locks to power Amazon Key in the future giving Amazon the ability to control deliveries from the warehouse to your hallway instead of merely your door mat.
One Response
If the images are then stored on or accessed through an Amazon server somewhere, then Amazon can see who is coming and going through your front door.
Just a bit too intrusive for me