Ring's new security drone for inside your home talks to Alexa, isn't creepy at all

It would be the beginning of the end.

2 Likes

What If the drones were like the flying balls of this movie?

(Warning: gory and splater scenes)

6 Likes

I recently bought a DVD of the 1984 Tom Selleck/ Michael Crichton film, Runaway. As a kid I was blown away by the futuristic technology such as the “hoover camera” which is pretty much exactly what this appears to be.

2 Likes

There was a lot of really smart thinking in that movie, like a system which listens for gunshots and reads out the exact type of gun being fired, and robots which vacuum a crime scene looking for evidence.

2 Likes

That might do it. Though given the power of drones like this, it would be, “Oh no, this drone is maybe going to scratch that itch I have!”

1 Like

Someone is gonna do a parody vid of this as part of the Combine…

4 Likes

I think some of the thoughts on this need a change of perspective.

Start with, everyone who doesn’t want any indoor camera at all. From that perspective, this one isn’t much different than a stationary one. That it’s physically blocked when not flying is an advantage. Nobody with this perspective wants any camera though, this one probably doesn’t impact their opinion.

This needs to be looked at from the perspective of someone who wants an indoor camera for whatever use case. Maybe to check on a pet when away at work, second home to check when away, home with smart doors to verify open/closed, or perhaps indoor security like the ad shows.

Compared to needing a single camera for an out of the way place, this doesn’t look any better to me. However, compared to a multi camera setup, this may have some advantages. At some point, it’s cheaper than many individual cameras, the con is that it can only see one thing instead of many at a time. That it’s physically blocked when not active instead of sitting on the shelf is an advantage. It’s perspective can be changed, a pan/tilt camera would give some of that too, but not as much.

For instance, my parents that winter in FL, have a stationary camera in the basement up north that they use to check for water. It’s a huge basement, something like this could make a perimeter sweep of the whole thing instead of just one view. In the summer the reverse, something like this could survey the FL condo for hurricane water ingress better than a single camera pointed at the most likely location.

The security scenario in the ad seems far fetched. A bunch of stationary cameras probably gives a better result, since presumably they’re already active and cover more at one time. This is probably better at investigating while remote after the fact.

1 Like

That is one of the most beautifully 90s things I’ve seen in ages. Thank you!

1 Like

I’ll take “uselessly noisy” for 400, Alex.

Amazon’s new ANTI-DRONE TECH comes in PINK!

George Carlin in 2020: “And now I need stuff to fly around and protect my stuff!”

Before everyone gets too excited for or against this thing:

  1. All videos of it so far are vaporware renders. No evidence of a working prototype exists.

  2. Amazon says “they hope to have it available next year” which is the thing companies say when they have no working prototype, nor any idea how long it will take to develop one. The engineers are laughing themselves out of the marketing office about even that estimate.

My money is on this this never happening. It’s a splashy marketing stunt to promote the company’s image as an innovator. There are countless technical reasons why this idea probably wouldn’t work well.

4 Likes

This drone will definitely need armaments if it’s going to enforce the will of our neofeudal corporate masters.

What, you didn’t think they were making these things for your benefit, did you?

Will buy! That’s stuff I read about in cheap sci-fi novels as teenager. I’d love to tinker with it.

You can do it! Just spend 40 times as much. Buy the Bee drone from Sunflower Labs for just $10000!

1 Like

I WANT This!

How much data will this thing acquire? What part of the world will the data be sent to and stored? Asia Eastern Europe? Who will have access to the data?

For example, fetishists who get turned on by the idea of a robot catching them in the act.

“Oh no, John Connor! We mustn’t… what if the HK units see us?”

“Let ‘em watch, baby. You look even hotter in infrared.”

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.