Amazon and Ring create surveillance drone that flies around inside your house
theverge.com
theverge.com
https://www.wired.com/story/ces-2020-amazon-defends-ring-pol...
Remember Ring's Android app being full of 3rd party trackers?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/ring-doorbell-app-pack...
Remember Ring's implementation of E2EE?
Neither do I.
While I don't really care from the perspective of 'I don't do anything illegal', I don't own any ring / Alexa / Nest / Home automation. Mostly because I don't like the trend towards optimal laziness personally, and it doesn't provide much in the way of value. The video shows this, the guys house is already broken into, is a drone going to stop a burglar from taking your laptop off that kitchen table? I have a better deterent, a dog which is much more effective according to felons (https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/crime/we-asked-86-burglars...)
This is just too creepy to me.
edit:formatting
It's easy to characterize home automation this way, and certainly "optimal laziness" is part of the appeal for some people, but it's genuinely useful in so many other ways. For instance, hallway lights that automatically turn on and off in response to motion _and_ at a dimmer setting at night, so you don't trip over a dog toy or blind yourself in the middle of the night. That's very hard to replicate in other ways (nightlights waste energy and are still bright enough to keep me awake).
Still a first-world frill to be sure, and maybe not worth it for everyone. But not without value, apart from "laziness".
Would love to hear some useful features.
After reading the article: Huh, that could be pretty handy.
It's intended for use when you're away (eg. did I leave the stove on?), the docking station blocks the camera, and it's noisy enough that people would hear it coming.
Of course I'd be a lot more comfortable if the video (and mapping) didn't go through these two companies. If their employee came to your door with a videocamera and said "hi, I want to film intimate interiors of your home" I'm pretty sure you'd tell them to creep off.
The obvious concern is the video itself, but there are many data streams adjacent to the core product, like behavioral data.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/ring-doorbell-app-pack...
Oh, I bet it does.
Drone technology seemed much cooler to me before I heard them fly. No wonder drone videos always have sound replaced by music.
Great way to tell burglars you are away!
Electronic components tend to become commodities which means there's usually a race to the bottom for prices of finished goods - so hardware companies hope to hold on to the data so that a) you don't switch b) they get more revenue out of you by selling your data or selling you ads. In this case though, Amazon might be selling below cost so that they can suck you deeper into the eco-system :) . Interesting times indeed!
You typically have to pay for it, but it is not particularly expensive. It's part of the process if you plan on buying a property, in order to ensure everything is up to code, property lines are where you expect them to be, etc.
Unexpected easements can be a real bitch if you buy a property only to find out part of it isn't actually yours, or that it is technically infeasible to update or rebuild a portion because of an undocumented/illegal code variance.
It's hard to tell how much is this a toy and how much is it home security