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After dipping his toes into AI at the launch of Smart Video Search last year, Ring just plunged deep into the Generated AI, and a new feature called Video Description was unveiled.
The idea is that instead of inexplicable motion alerts like “Detected Person”, the ring cam and doorbell can tell you exactly what's going on. So you get alerts like “someone has been seen holding a bike” or “someone has a tool in the kitchen.”
The new feature begins to roll out this week in beta for Ringhome Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, and will work with all current ring doorbells and cameras.
With the power of generation AI, it is not object/person detection that has already existed for years. This is part of a broader plan to shift daily surveillance from human to machine smart.
The results are more useful alerts and fewer unnecessary taps. If your phone rings and the notification reads “someone is looking at a black car in your driveway,” you will probably check it out. It may not be the case that you say, “a person is climbing the stairs with a black dog.” Especially if it's your neighbor, Steve. With his dog. Also.
Ring's latest AI features provide detailed text alerts
These explanations are designed to be short and focused, and there is no breakdown of the length of the essay of what is happening in the frame.
According to Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, he recently rejoined the Amazon-owned brand's team, and AI will only explain the main subjects that sparked the movement and what they are doing.
Siminoff, in a blog post, also tackles an extraordinary alert to learn about normal things in your home, only pinging you when something feels good, just as at 3am someone or dog hiding in the yard suddenly becomes fraudulent in the decoration of your living room.
There is also a mention of combining multiple motion events into a single alert. This will help reduce those alert avalanches when someone walks along the side of your house and places all the cameras in turn.
When it comes to security cam alerts, it's not just the rings that are leaning towards AI to cut off notification noise. Arlo has its own take, called event captions, and Wyze launched a descriptive alert earlier this year. Eufy and Swann also now have AI capabilities as part of Smart Security Camera Arsenal.
There is no face recognition yet about Ring's latest AI attacks. So, while the explanation is not too personal for now, it's not difficult for this kind of technical team to offer advanced AI routines, such as strangers getting closer or turning on the garage lights, along with Alexa+, to provide advanced AI routines such as turning on the garage lights when riding a bike.
As mentioned before, you'll need the $19.99 Ringhome Premium Plan to give it a try. Just enable it in the ring app.
It is said that more features will be added in the coming months, but since this is still in beta, there may be some toothing issues.
