Be skeptical of Ring's indoor security drone
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
There's no way my wife would allow all those wires everywhere. And the wireless security cameras are a pain because you have to remember to recharge them.
Now, before the wannabe This Old House crowd starts up with "You just put the wires in the walls," consider that 43% of Americans rent their homes, and the number is even higher in other countries. The vast majority of landlords won't allow you to run wires in the walls.
That said, there's NFW I would have one of these in my house because I don't trust any tech company to have a camera in my house.
It's marketed as a security device, but it's not like a toy quadcopter is going to stop an intruder any better than a non-flying camera. Which means "not at all."
If you want home security that can reach all parts of your home, and provide alerts when someone breaks in, get a dog.
No, the dog can't alert you when you're not home, but again, it's not like you can do anything about a break-in when you're not home either way.
Then again, iOS has the built-in ability to detect dogs barking and react to that. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, your Homepod can detect the dog barking and hit you with a text message.
In the case of the drone, it's just a geeky toy that will be inevitably marketed via fear-mongering, so they can collect even more data on you.
When I go away, I put my old launch-day iPhone on a dock and aim it at the food dish. I has an app that polls that camera and checks for movement. If movement is detected, it sends a series of stills to me by e-mail.
The app is no longer available on the App Store, but it keeps working because the iPhone is too old to connect to the App Store and be told that the app no longer exists. But I should think that there's a modern equivalent out there somewhere.
Nice! But also sad that this is the only way one can keep running a desired app in this day where an external corporation controls what one is allowed to use.
Reminds me of how in the 80's, Radio Shack used to sell fake car alarm stickers.
Those aren't as useful as you might think.
I grew up in NYC, and in the late '70s/early '80s, people put all sorts of stickers and signs on their cars.
One time, I even saw a car with a broken window and a sign (presumably from the window that was broken) reading "No radio. Nothing of value."
The person who broke the window (at least I assume it was them) helpfully jotted "Just checking" on the sign.
For a theoretical investigator. Police departments don't have the money, manpower, or time to do gait analysis on a burglary suspect. And outside of China, is that even considered evidence in a real court of law?
Crime goes by some skewed power law distributions and a relatively small number of people do most of the crime in any given area.
As an aside, security camera footage of a crime in your house is also great for your criminal defense (if you are going to use violence against the intruder) and for pressing a claim to an insurance company. If the intruder pulls a gun on you and you shoot him in response on camera, you can use that piece of evidence to get charges dropped against you or to prevent the police from even recommending charges in the first place.
I once had my residence burglarized. The police came hours after they were called and stayed long enough (10 minutes) to write a report that took me weeks to get which essentially said "door kicked in, owner said these things gone." That was it: no attempts to follow up with my neighbor that had security cameras, no attempt to run fingerprints on the metal pipe that was found outside that was almost certainly used to break the window, nothing.
If your surveillance drone doesn't get a crystal clear picture of the face of the person who broke into your house, absolutely no one is going to attempt to pull prints or tracks or DNA samples from what it captured. And even if it did get a crystal clear picture, you'll be lucky to get someone to look at it.
This is the purpose of the visit - to verify that it was a real break-in and not someone scamming their insurance company. Catching the thief is nowhere on their priorities.
I got the distinct impression that even if I did jump through hoops to provide a DVD that they wouldn't be seriously investigating the theft. The officer who took my statement basically said as much.
Police in many places don't do all the things that they do on television anymore.
In some cities, burglaries may not get a police response for days, if at all.
Police departments all across the country have to juggle finances. Sometimes this means deciding what types of crimes get investigated, and which do not. When I lived in the capital of a medium-sized eastern city in the 90's, the mayor and police department had a very public back-and-forth with a big list of crimes, and placing a red line on that list deciding what the police will look at and what they wouldn't.
For example, until last year, police in Las Vegas dropped car crashes from the list of things they would respond to. Unless someone was hurt or killed, they were deemed civil matters and people were supposed to take pictures and let their insurance companies figure it out.
None of what you're claiming is an argument against using cameras, though. Including the insinuation and logical fallacy that the only experience I, a lay judge within the Norwegian justice system, have with police work is through television........
You won't believe how often camera surveillance footage comes up in court cases, and how often they are instrumental in deciding those very cases. That you have an underfunded police force has exactly nothing to do with camera surveillance. In fact, knowing that is actually a giant argument for getting more surveillance cameras(!), since it's such a big help in solving cases and convicting criminals.
Add to this that I've travelled quite extensively, including in countries with severely underfunded police forces, such as in Bulgaria and Romania, or worse, Serbia. There I've seen up close how such underfunded police work. Yeah, surveillance footage; it's even more important in areas with underfunded police! So if you choose to not install cameras, that's up to you, pal. But don't complain to me when you're making sure that any burglary towards your house becomes unsolvable because you refused to install them...
Frankly, that’s fine by me: putting enough police in place to investigate every incident of property crime would be exceptionally wasteful and would drive up overpolicing of certain communities to a ridiculous and dangerous degree. All I really needed was that report for insurance, after all.
Making them prioritize burglaries or robberies without increasing their manpower might force them to reallocate resources from overpolicing certain communities to doing actual, useful work that makes everyone safer. Sounds like a win-win to me.
But then again, I'm not an expert. Maybe the amount of labor allocated to investigating property crimes currently is appropriate and increasing that might take focus away from violent crimes.
Yep. In some jurisdictions, you file burglary reports over the phone. Police don't even come out. They've prioritized burglaries out.
It's better to focus on making sure it's not worth someone's time to get in. Such as keeping expensive, easy to grab, items out of sight. And then just have good locks and a loud alarm.
Adding a camera should be the last thing you do to your setup.
I think they're really handy for monitoring the status of routine household tasks, though.
"Did I get a package today? What time does the mail normally arrive? How is the dog doing? Did the garbage truck come by yet? Did the storm do any damage while I was away?"
Most of that sounds like the side-effects of FOMO.
Did I get a package today?
Unless you live in a neighborhood or building where packages get stolen, who cares? You'll find it when you get home. If it's important, you have a tracking number and know if it was delivered.
What time does the mail normally arrive?
Who cares? My office window overlooks the mailboxes, and it comes at a different time every day. As long as it comes.
How is the dog doing?
He's fine. And if he's not, you'll find out when you get home.
Did the garbage truck come by yet?
Who cares? Even when I had an HMO, we had eight hours to get the trash cans off the curb.
Did the storm do any damage while I was away?
Nice to know, if it's a tornado. But again, there's nothing you can do, so why do you need to know? It's not like you're not going to push a button on your phone and magically lift your patio set out of the neighbor's pool. If you come home and see flashing emergency lights, then yes, there is damage.
What does your health care plan have to with getting talked to by the home owners association?
Or alternatively, if you have a camera, you can find out immediately and come home.
I use mine to find things I've misplaced. Saved my ass the other month when I was running late for a flight but couldn't find my keys.
Or sometimes I just forget to take them out of my pocket.
You were running late for the flight. Couldn't find your keys. Presumably pretty panicked. And you sat down and watched multiple streams of cameras to see if you might see yourself putting the keys down somewhere?
Also, being late for a flight doesn't make me panic.
Some packages will fit in my mail slot. Some packages won't fit and will sit outside. If I bought something that could be damaged by water, and it is sitting outside in the rain, I might drop by the house to move it inside. If it is safely out of the weather, I can save time by not doing that.
> Who cares? My office window overlooks the mailboxes, and it comes at a different time every day. As long as it comes.
I have used the data from my cameras to find out that my mail comes on a fairly consistent schedule. If I am expecting an important letter (especially something that might be a prereq for other errands I have to run), this can be helpful information to plan my schedule in a way that saves time.
> Who cares? Even when I had an HMO, we had eight hours to get the trash cans off the curb.
I live on a hill, so it's nice to put my cans away promptly so I don't have to chase them down the street or retrieve them from the middle of the road. When they're empty it's easy for them to blow away.
> Nice to know, if it's a tornado. But again, there's nothing you can do, so why do you need to know?
I disagree with this more than anything. Plain ol' thunderstorms or winter storms can do significant damage, and if the damage is to the roof, a window, or a pipe, the resulting water damage could be exponentially more extensive if it isn't remediated quickly. I have some family who were on vacation when a pipe burst -- if they would have caught it quickly, it could have been mopped up and shut off. Instead they had to stay in a hotel while their interior was gutted and replaced.
In normal times, I travel quite a bit. I do have one camera (RPi) looking outside along with a couple other sensors. And I don't really care enough to put cameras all over the house so I can look over things when I'm traveling. (Or, given where I live, enough to subscribe to a security service.)
But, for general peace of mind, to have a single device that lets me look in on things now and then? It actually seems reasonable.
I don't think most people comprehend what their devices are doing, or how their data could be used against them. My robovac has a LIDAR sensor that maps the house - that's cool - what isn't cool is that by default it uploads those maps to Xiaomi and they can connect it via GeoIP (or GPS if I ever use their app) and have the location and floorplan of my home. I'm not special enough for that information to be very valuable, but it's still super creepy and I would prefer they not have it.
One such example (Though I haven't used it personally): https://www.amazon.com/Amcrest-Splitter-Adapter-802-3af-comp...
Most devices are connected to HomeKit through a Pi running Homebridge. I wanted voice control and Apple is the company I distrust the least since they at least pretend to care about privacy.
I have only messed around a little with HomeAssistant, but that's what I would recommend if you want entirely locally controlled home automation. They even have a voice assistant[1] but for now it's worse than Siri, which is really saying something.
1: https://github.com/SwiCago/HeatPump 2: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2392856 3: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focuse...
If you’re okay with someone in front of a computer screen watching what you and the people you care about do through a camera or even share those videos across the internet, then you’re all good!
Does that also mean that the cameras can't see if a guy breaks into my house? That seems like a pretty big risk then.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/10/amazon-ring-security-cam...
> Although the source said they never personally witnessed any egregious abuses, they told The Intercept “if [someone] knew a reporter or competitor’s email address, [they] could view all their cameras.” The source also recounted instances of Ring engineers “teasing each other about who they brought home” after romantic dates. Although the engineers in question were aware that they were being surveilled by their co-workers in real time, the source questioned whether their companions were similarly informed.
Assuming write access to your device: implanting false digital evidence on your device, calling the cops, and framing you
Assuming root access to your device and network: if you work from home, exfiltrating company-confidential from your home network. Running a botnet from your home.
i don’t want to say they’re malicious but it should be clear by now that a very tiny fraction of companies are taking the security of this data and it’s collectors at even a fraction of how serious they should. even behemoths like amazon have had massive problems with their devices and have been very loose with the data collected.
- Blackmail
- Stalking
- Determining when you're out of your house, and for how long you're likely to be out of your house to plan burglary.
As for their utility, meh, dubious utility. Yeah, I get a notice on my phone when they detect movement. That just means I know when my maid is moving between the basement and the living room. But, I know this going in - bought them more as a nerd gadget thing that actual security.
He also had the hopeless feeling of there being nothing to do, but had some sort of Eureka-moment and started playing “Fuck the police” on max volume on the floor above (all via his phone), and that apparently sent the burglars running!
(When he later talked to the cops they did call him a genius but questioned the song choice.)
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you
or
One way, or another, I'm gonna find ya
I'm gonna get ya get ya get ya get ya!
Though any music works best as shows somebody in and most burglars don't want anybody there as then it becomes a robbery and those sentences are higher. So playing music good and your choice is pretty excellent in the psychological factor upon the burglars.
If the above video was faked, and you could post a link or some context showing how it was faked, that would be a good contribution.
Thanks :)
* Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins
* Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N Roses
* Surfin' Bird by Trashmen
https://www.theverge.com/21300261/ios-14-update-smoke-alarm-...
Also don't get a Lab because he'll just lick the hands of the burgler.
Wouldn't you just have them located near an outlet so they could be plugged in all the time?
> Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, your Homepod can detect the dog barking and hit you with a text message.
Considering that our dogs bark at things way across the street, we'd be bombarded with false alarm text messages with a system like this. :-)
Maybe version 2.0 will have lasers?
That's a business model right there!
Say what? Seriously?
I'm not. It's a marriage. We make decisions together.
If your worldview some stereotype of calling everything you haven't experienced "outdated?" That's borderline ageism right there. Celebrate diversity.
But this also might not be good for the pet's mental health either as a loud ass drone buzzes around them.
Oh cool. I always wanted to get texts all day alerting me to people walking dogs across the street and that the squirrel that lives in the tree in the front yard has descended again.
I would like to politely inform you that the neighbor has gone out to get the mail. This is an urgent matter, you must attend to it at once.
Sincerely,
Doggo
There's the "neighbor let the dog out" barking, unexpected car door, terrible music, that creepy neighbor guy, battlestations: generally unfamiliar dog or delivery person pulled up.
They can actually communicate quite a lot.
Also, "there's something I want but I can't get it", very similar to "I want to be somewhere but I'm stuck" (usually she trapped herself in the bathroom). Even though both are a shrill YARP, the former is insistent, the latter is uncertain.
Then there's "throw the damn ball already", "cat, get away from my food", and the ultra rare yet adorable ambulance howl.
Several manufacturers sell battery powered cameras that last up to two years without charging. Or you can get solar powered ones for outdoors. They have very low power consumption as they're normally off, until PIR triggered. That's a reasonable trade off, I think. The downside is triggering is potentially unreliable and they're not good for continuous monitoring/recording. But for detecting someone at the door, or in your garden, they're not a bad choice.
A flying security drone solves a few big problems for me A) sometimes a cat decides not to come downstairs for a while, being able to see them is great. B) Stuff gets wrecked while we're gone, its nice to know what we're walking in to and figure out how to have less stuff wrecked in the future.
I'd imagine other folks have various "peace of mind" concerns while away such as the classic "did I leave the oven on?". A patrolling camera is the perfect solution to this problem and is only tangentially related to true home security.
It also assumes typical American construction styles. In my country all houses are made of brick. Opening up the walls to run some cables is often borderline impossible.
This is some misogynistic bull because you’re implying that only women would care about unsightly wires strung around the place.
Educate yourself.
I am implying nothing. I am stating a fact. My wife hates visible wires. Every time we move, it's a pain in the ass to hide all the wires for the TV. When Bluetooth became a thing, she was first on board with a wireless mouse and keyboard. It's been an ongoing theme in our relationship for decades.
Educate yourself.
I don't need to educate myself about my wife. You might want to educate yourself about projection, and making false assumptions to fit other people into your stereotypes.
Agree with everything you said except this. This is terrible advice for most people. Don't get a dog unless you really want a dog. And if you do get one, adopt, because there are people who do think like this^ about animals, and a significant number of those animals will end up at a shelter at some point.
The drone looks really well designed and practical (compared to buying dozens of separate cameras you can have just a couple, and a drone).
Yet most things that come to market are exactly this. Cloud services, subsctiptions and integration with these “smart speakers” (I’m not getting one of those either, so long as they are connected to whoever sold it rather than just to the weather web service).
I wish someone who didn’t have an interest in knowing everything about everyone but could actually make money from hardware would do this.
Is there really no market for that?
Seems like the golden age of drones for hobbyist pilots was before all the regulation kicked in, but in this case perhaps Ring could get an exception to restricted areas since they are indoor drones.
seems like you've answered your own question there
So, any company in that space is competing against FAANG which is pretty daunting...
The issue with remote access is you need a service in the middle to provide that remote access, and provide it securely. Otherwise you're just talking something in the home (BLE, etc).
If you don't have some type of service the average consumer will not be able to use it, people aren't going to setup NAS devices, or other servers in their house to collect video data. Even a wireless DVR system can be a pain (another box, likely another TV to see it, etc).
I know that this community is more on the side of the skepticism of collecting data, but keep in mind the total addressable market is mostly people who don't want to deal with these problems.
Now if you're talking about "if the cloud service is down my device doesn't work" then I completely agree, these devices need to have enough local functionality to operate/buffer without their service working for extended periods of time, or being removed.
The argument "you need to upload all your data to our servers or you'll likely have to get another to TV to view it" is just beyond lame.
Everything is cheaper per pound in a data center. And they can force updates if the client is dumber.
And the customers won't complain when the SSD eventually dies.
> and allow the user to view them on their smart phone by connecting to the base station through the wifi?
Because people will want to do it across WAN. LAN-only is one piece of code, WAN-only is another. Going up to WAN for everything is redundant but costs less dev time.
Yes, it's frustrating for us who care about privacy. The motive is never to build a good product that respects people and does what they want. The motive is always to make money. Every corner must be cut.
Yes, agreed. That's just a totally different argument than the one supergeek133 made, so my point stands.
That being said I've always been a huge proponent of allowing some type of local control. Think of people in the automation market (Control 4, CEDIA type stuff) where it would simply be faster.
Even Google/Amazon allow local lambda function type activities that would be much better experience if we allowed local control.
But that also changes your security landscape.
Like this, even if the perpetrator takes the camera/bell with him/her, the evidence stays on the cloud.
Also, for evidence to be admissible in a court of law, one has to prove the chain of custody. Something in your laptop is more prone to editing than a video sitting on a cloud where logs vouch for its integrity.
Edit: don't let me invoke the gods of security frameworks. My laptop at home is not ISO27001 compliant, has never been assessed for security etc. The infrastructure of Ring (I believe) is regularly assessed/audited.
It needs to be connected to a TV to view the video locally, or you need to have some technical knowledge to setup RTSP on your LAN.
Again, total addressable market.
Do you disagree?
Does Apple use iCloud for HomeKit, or is it all on the iPad/AppleTV that acts as the home hub?
This is a pain, but solvable by punching holes in all the NAT pair combinations. At a previous startup we all communication peer to peer (phones, custom home devices, laptops), no data traversed our servers ("the cloud"). It worked beautifully.
> This is a pain, but solvable by punching holes in all the NAT pair combinations.
"Popular" is relative.
Same here. Is there any company working on this product space?
It will never be created by a large corporation or VC-backed startup because those have a need to extract every penny of income from the product line which means there will be a subscription and there will be cloud data gathering which will be sold to advertisers.
But a small privately held company could sustainably target the niche of stand-alone home automation devices for the target audiences who care about privacy and/or prefer no recurring monthly fee.
(I worked on a startup addressing a small segment of this space but over time we (the initial engineering team) lost control to the investors and it morphed into a cloud-dependent service and then promptly died. Would love to work on that space again but without the investors to keep the focus sharp.)
Also, doing everything over the internet to centralized "cloud" servers is easier to develop for and manage, and its easier on the end user to set up, strengthening the product. Although I think this is more of a cherry on top of the big pile of data they're getting on you.
It also probably subsidizes the unit cost. Companies would much rather sell you a "cheaper" device with a subscription plan than a potentially more expensive device with one-time payment. Your average consumer will choose the device that is cheaper up-front for the same reasons.
The technical, privacy-focused crowd that tends to populate this forum is already being served by the type of cameras you can already buy on Monoprice, Newegg, or some other related store. Can you imagine a company like Amazon selling that kind of product? I sure can't.
With that said, if anyone would sell a privacy-focused device with all the same benefits as Ring, it would probably be Apple since privacy is part of their brand. I don't think the odds of that happening soon are high, but I could be wrong.
that's the money-shot line . you nailed it
Cameras that don’t need to be accessed over the internet are not the same market as internet connected cameras. For a thousand bucks or so you can get a few decent cameras and an NVR and have all the local camera viewing and recording you want. But most people don’t really need that.
> As this July article from the EFF points out, “with a warrant, police could also circumvent the device’s owner and get footage straight from Amazon, even if the owner denied the police.” The EFF is talking about the Ring doorbell camera here, but it’s not clear to me that the Ring drone would be an exception.
Yes, creepy does not even begin to describe my feelings.
My air cleaning machine has the option to phone home and automatically order replacement filters.
3M has an air filter that Bluetooths with an app that will automatically order new air filters.
The copier at work automatically orders new toner when it runs low. (Though not soon enough, and the threshold is not adjustable.)
I had an HP home printer that also had this ability.
Is it just in the Ring terms of service or something?
But I use drugs, so I'm sorry homie, I ain't giving the cops straightline access into the house.
But even if you could manually control the device, I'd be too afraid of having Amazon capturing full video of all my belongings. They have the resources to easily hook up the feed to an object detection ETL or some other AI system to extract a ton of information about the owners, and then sell that as specialized advertising intelligence. All of a sudden my mailbox fills up with lots of high focused ads.
OK I realize that's probably going down the conspiracy theory path a little much :), but I don't think it's too far off.
I just bought a power washer. I bought it on Amazon. Amazon easily knows I now own a power washer. And yet Amazon is giving me a ton of recommendations for power washers.
This is a constant problem with recommendations and everyone I know has the same experience.
And unless there's some sort of data regulation preventing them from applying my purchase history to their recommendations it's ridiculously easy to fix. Tag item categories as "1 per household over x months" and when someone purchase amount goes beyond the threshold stop recommending products from that category until x months has passed.
I have a pretty good hunch that these companies often do stupid stuff like this.
For some reason, both Comcast and Verizon also have my address as a variant on my real postal service address that hasn't been true since before I moved here over 20 years ago.
I assume that manually tagging certain types of items with a flag that means "The buyer is unlikely to buy another item in this category within a meaningful timeframe no matter how often we recommend it" is more effort than the recommendation slot is worth. There are probably a number of flags one could imagine setting but it's likely very hard to automate because it requires understanding how people use/consume/upgrade/etc. a given item.
Turns out that security is a euphemism for "observation & reporting." Use cases span a host of shared services: Traditional Security, Employee Health & Safety, Facilities Management (e.g. leaks & spills), Customer Service, and others. Breaking & Enterings do happen, but they are rare. Facilities incidents such as the ones you mentioned are vastly more common.
* We are exclusively indoors at this time.
* We're the only indoor provider that can manage doors & elevators.
* We have 2-way video in addition to 2-way audio.
* We provide a comprehensive service: hardware, software, service & maintenance, and remote monitoring.
* We manage multiple, redundant 24/7 command centers, with operators speaking dozens of languages.
* We have SOC2 certifications & deal with GDPR - shockingly, no other providers are SOC2 certified.
* We offer rich applications on the robot's screen, including visitor management, forms, etc.
* We can perform COVID-related features, such as elevated temperature screening using FLIR cameras, promoting social distancing, and enforcing PPE.
* We support international operations too.
I think the majority of people aren't very good at flying drones. Even outside, it can take a lot of practice.
People don't want to spend hours or days learning how to fly a drone in their homes. They want stuff to just work.
I crashed and broke my VTOL airplane twice last weekend. Sighs dramatically. Pilot error.
More seriously, there's a couple main issues: piloting, and recharging.
You'd want the drone to not crash into anything, and remote controlling the drone with Internet-induced lag would be especially challenging. There's a reason why FPV setups for race drones use analog video still.
Also, just as with making a household wheeled security robot, you can do that right now, but the automatic return to the charging base is not widely available as a commercial product.
But I want a product, not tinkering. The appeal of this isn’t just what it does but that it does it right after I unpack it. I want it to fly by itself using some wizardry that a person at a huge company cooked up. I just don’t want it to phone home to do it.
That’s what I want in the “standalone” one too. Mass market product appeal. No tinkering.
Maybe there is a better product though.
Seriously: I haven't put in a camera because my DSL craps out every month or so and requires a hard modem reboot to reconnect, which seems like a lot to ask from the friend who checks my mail.
I would love to see a solution tailored to people not in their domiciles, but I don't feel like this is it.
This announcement (not yet a product!) is for people who really need to look around the places they're going to return to in a day or two anyway, max. Maybe that's a market; it's not me.
https://action.aclu.org/petition/amazon-stop-selling-surveil...
(Ex?) NSA is literally now on the Board https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426500
Just because amazon said they are sharing footage with police departments doesn't mean they aren't sharing it with other federal agencies
From this side of the pond it just looks absolutely insane, full of paranoia and fear. I know there's a country there full of gun totin' lunatics in many places, but I just don't get it.
This is less criticism, btw, and more social commentary. Explain for me how it got so insane?!
Is that because you guys prefer your cameras outside? Brits love CCTV and the watchful eye of big brother
I'm also slightly unclear why. I mean, you look at your phone and see some guy wandering around your house - how does that actually help? If you're in the house you st your pants and hide under the bed or worse case grab your gun and go get shot. If you're out, you phone the police which is what a good intruder alarm would do anyway.
Seems really odd to me.
Oh, plus the thoughts in the article, namely "buy a couple of cheap cameras instead" if you really want this stuff in your life.
Congratulations, you have footage of the guy! Now what do you do? The police can't be bothered, and they shouldn't, why waste more tax dollars than your TV is worth recovering it?
Get a dog, add motion sensors if you feel like it. Vote for social programs and pay the taxes instead of buying data-mining toys.
Even then I don't think it would in that case, my personal experience tells me that it could be distressing to someone who's disoriented, drones aren't exactly quiet. (Also it apparently it only moves in premade paths)
A GoPro-esque camera with streaming attached to clothing could be better at that.
1. Never wants anything, so you never know what to get them. 2. Vaguely worries about security.
Which describes my parents and the parents of a lot other people I know.
It’s perfect because it scratches their itch for security, while also being futuristic and cool, unlike a regular camera system.
Many consumers have already invited big tech companies into their homes with Echo et al, and it’s clear that privacy is not a primary concern for many people.
My gut instinct is that these kinds of products create an itch for security.
When we had our first baby, we considered a video monitor, but my wife is quite anxious -- and also very self-aware -- and knew that if she got one she'd be starting at the screen constantly making sure she could detect a moving chest.
Then people started getting the wearable baby monitors that automatical check breathing. You can imagine how much anxiety soared. "Is it reading correctly? What if the monitors have just stopped working? And why has it been 20 seconds since the last update?"
We got an audio monitor that only responded to loud noises. Our parents generation, of course, didn't even have that, and were even less anxious than us.
I think the more you get into these kinds of products, the more you starting thinking about it, and the more you start thinking about what you're not monitoring, and what you are missing in your system, and how you didn't check the feed yet today while on holiday...
Just don’t get them anything. Maybe just some fancy wind sausage.
It’s not that hard. The compulsion to fill people’s lives with junk they neither need, nor in your case want, is beyond me.
Different point entirely, I know.
Where the heck are these people? Why I can't seem to find them in real life? I'd be a lot richer!
Seriously, if you're one of these people, you should send me 10 Bitcoins and I'll install a high definition surveillance camera and microphone in every room of your home and live stream everything online... I'll even sell your data to third parties so that they can decide the result of the election on your behalf automatically. You'll love it!
If I had a relatively large (100 acre) or so property: is there a drone that I can buy that will be available whenever I want to check something out (without having to get up from my desk) then fly back to my roof to charge itself when its done?
The "figure out what proximity alarm was tripped" part would be extra sauce. The main thing I'm looking for is return to home and charge yourself until I need you again.
The panopticon is coming, but I didn't expect to pay $250 for the privilege.
That is a contrived argument. The first time it launches without my permission, i would knock it out of the air and immediately return it or trash it.
It’s not like you would just continue to own it when you’re scared of it
I wonder to what extent Amazon (or whoever) scans for other identifiable devices on the subnet.
Maybe the annoyance is enough to chase away burglars and such —they are actively reminded they’re being recorded and it’s not as easy to de-energize and disconnect as regular home sec cams.
This is a 'novel' toy, the kind of cool factor that transcends use case. 'Aspirational Utility' it's called. Dude's can spend $300 on it 'because it's useful' they will tell themselves.
That being said, I will never buy this because Ring is untrustworthy.
There are auto switch off devices for both gas and electric stoves by the way.
And like I said in my comment: Ring is untrustworthy. As such, there is no way I would ever purchase this from them.
I would also not purchase it from a different large corp.
For the record, I would never allow this in my house. A dog is a much better deterrent than any alarm.
I find them extremely common in the hyper-safe suburbs where every kid is in a safety bubble, probably the lowest crime areas going. They're sold for inflated prices.
Probably way over used, but there's legit utility there.
But what nerd can honestly not say they're not having to actively resist from buying a flying 'home monitor drone'. I mean, I'm 100% sure that I don't need one and I still want to buy it!
It's actually a smart move by Amazon, it's important to imbue their otherwise 'Warehouse of Crap' brand with aspirational things.
I foresee a million dudes 'checking to see if they locked the door' ... just because.
>I find them extremely common in the hyper-safe suburbs where every kid is in a safety bubble, probably the lowest crime areas going. They're sold for inflated prices.
Alarms are definitely useful. Mostly because in many places, having an alarm system installed will lower your homeowner's insurance premium.
As long as the ROI is less than how long you intend to live in that residence, it makes lots of sense.
Beyond that? Not much value.
As long as it blows up dust and my air filter cleans it, I have a clean house.
And I won't die early from the PM2.5, I think. It's a contradiction. Need to practical run over months. Perhaps need to only have the drone going when not around. Or maybe it's like asbestos and you should leave dust alone.
So why is that? Often, under such circumstances, legal plays into it.
> One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them ...
Also, Roombas aren't all that great at mapping your home, unless you live in an empty shipping container with no furniture. I've seen the maps that my Roomba creates. They are useless for anything other than their intended purposes: Showing wifi signal strength.
I hear these drones charge with free electricity when they land on dash buttons.
But nobody wants to build that because the tech world has mostly stopped thinking about how to solve problems.