Upcoming premium Ring doorbell subscription offers AI search – with mixed results

An upcoming premium Ring doorbell subscription will offer 24/7 recording, and AI-powered search, from $19.99 per month.

The Amazon-owned company is also renaming two of its existing subscription tiers, while Ring Protect Pro subscribers will have to choose between upgrading or downgrading …

Ring doorbell subscription changes

TechCrunch has the details.

A new service, called Ring Home Premium, will include features like 24/7 recording and AI-powered video search, starting at $19.99 per month when it launches on November 5 in the U.S. Less-expensive tiers, Ring Home Standard and Ring Home Basic, will bundle in several capabilities, but not 24/7 recording or the upgraded search […]

The old Ring Protect Basic plan is becoming Ring Home Basic ($4.99 per month). Ring Protect Plus will become Ring Home Standard ($9.99 per month). And Ring Protect Pro will become Ring Home Standard with alarm professional monitoring ($9.99 per month) or Ring Home Premium, depending on which customers choose.

It’s bad news for Ring Protect Pro subscribers, as they’ll lose a lot of functionality unless they upgrade.

Those subscribed to Ring Protect Pro will lose local video storage, internet backup, and Amazon’s Eero Secure suite beginning November 5. If they don’t have a Ring Alarm or Ring Alarm Pro device, they’ll also lose SOS emergency response.

All of these features and more — including various monitoring capabilities for Amazon’s home robot, Astro — are now gated behind Ring Home Premium.

AI search put to the test

Wired tested the AI search capabilities and reported “mixed results.”

In WIRED’s tests, Ring’s search worked decently well on queries including “backpack,” “scarf,” “speeding cars,” “ice cream truck,” and “shopping cart.”

But for many searches, the results were filled with understandable misidentifications. The software interpreted headlights bursting into view from turning cars as “fireworks.” “Blonde women” delivered people fitting the description but also golden retrievers. To the AI, anyone with a hand near their face seemed to be “smoking” […]

“Purple hair” included someone in a purple sweater and a bus with purple paint. Ring wouldn’t identify a decorative pumpkin but associated with the gourd an orange-vested landscaper who was bundling leaves into a white sack. “Rollerblades” correctly pulled up someone skating about, but “roller blades” (with a space) brought up nothing, because Ring associated “blade” with weaponry.

Amazon says that the search feature is a work in progress, and will improve over time.

9to5Mac collage of images from Ring and Photo by Sarah Sheedy on Unsplash