Ring has now raised $100M for video doorbells

lot of products are being sold in the name of protecting your kids because this is a common reasoning appealing to parents. Not sure how comfortable I'd be growing up with parents who use surveillance capabilities like these and never stop stalking me. I guess I might react in 2 different ways: 1) constantly anxious over who is watching 2) ignoring the way I'm watched and growing up as a "properly indoctrinated soldier" who agrees that surveillance is not a problem and privacy is not a right because you shouldn't have anything to hide anyway.

What bothers me most though is that we make our kids believe that big brother will always watch out for us.

There's a part of me that cynically wants to just guess that it does always go up to the cloud, but it's also silly (read "expensive") to ship video up to the cloud just to potentially ship it right back down to the very same wifi network, so maybe not.

(Of course I assume the cloud does proxy it if you're not home, because $90 million probably isn't anywhere near enough to actually take on trying to make IPv6 work for consumers reliably enough to make this work. Sad.)

I really don't want that data hitting some random company's server (setting aside issues with trusting other cloud storage providers), and I just don't feel like adding any more recurring payments to the list. I want one and done.

There are remote controllable door locks. This doesn't interface with them. Nor does it talk to the home security system. The home IoT guys need to get more organized about this.

[1] http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Outdoor-battery-operat...

(1) https://www.netatmo.com/en-US/product/presence (2) http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/14/august-unveils-a-homekit-...) (3) http://www.mysmahome.com/FEATURE/5344/7-must-see-smart-video... (4) https://gigaom.com/2011/04/12/stick-a-fork-in-flip-smartphon...

An attacker at your door has physical access to your Ring device, which can be leveraged into access to your wifi network (unless they fixed this already).

You can get an iphone 6s camera replacement for around $40, it seems like the quality is far superior to the current consumer security cameras on the market - so why are ring and nest the only options?

[0] http://www.statista.com/topics/1618/residential-housing-in-t...

I'd rather buy the batteryless (non-Ring) one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9CpalDdd04

It's pretty cool because you can get video feed from the front door (or ground floor elevator door if the building is open and has a front desk). As well as from your front door.

Also it tells you when you have mail, or a package waiting for you, and you can push a button and call the elevator to your floor.

It's got a panic button too.

Oh, and often there's a panel for in the bathroom, as well as behind the inside of your apartment door. So you can buzz people up even while you're taking a crap.

The second gen unit has been very reliable, and the video quality is night and day better than first gen. Although there can be a little lag of about 10 seconds or so from when the doorbell is rang till it rings on my phone.

Is there really a powerful enough battery to make it work for a useful amount of time?

Are people really willing to charge or replace the batteries as often as is required (likely every few days or a week at the very least, by my back-of-the-envelope calculation)?

If not, it is just a simple security camera system with motion detect capability, right?