Amazon's Ring adds an autonomous indoor drone and a $1,000 patrol robot for businesses
The Ring Drone Cam flies about eight minutes per charge and dislikes mirrors, while the wheeled Ring Rover Cam ships December 16 and can't climb stairs.
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Ring's security cameras now come with wheels and propellers. Amazon has introduced an AI-powered security drone and a patrol robot, Jeremy Hsu reports for Ars Technica.
Ring Drone Cam
Amazon calls the drone a new, autonomous way to check on your home, whether you're away or in the next room. You steer it from the Alexa Home Map, the interactive map of all your Amazon-connected devices.
- Camera: 2K video, a 148-degree field of view and full 360-degree rotation, with two LEDs that turn on in low light.
- Battery: about 8 minutes of flight, and that's Amazon's best case, measured with a fresh battery at full charge in a controlled setting. It comes with a charging dock.
- Fine print: it may struggle around shiny floors like polished marble or wet tile, blank featureless walls, and glass or mirrors.
Ring Rover Cam
The Rover is a wheeled robot Amazon pitches at businesses. It costs $1,000, is up for preorder now, and starts shipping on December 16, 2026. Amazon says feedback on its invite-only Astro home robot shaped the design.
- Records and livestreams in up to 4K while patrolling or doing a 360-degree scan at a set spot.
- Clips from doorbell rings, motion and Live View go to the cloud for up to 180 days.
- Like the drone, it can respond to alerts from other Ring devices by running preset patrol routes.
The catch: one indoor floor only, since it can't do stairs. Amazon also lists curved edges, sunken areas, floor transitions taller than 1.375 inches and black glossy floors as trouble.
Scoreboard update: Draw. The patrol bots are autonomous, but a stair or a mirror still stops them.
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