At the back end of 2020, Ring showed off a concept device it promised would be coming to homes at some point in the future. The Always Home Cam is a mini drone, designed to zoom around your home, patrolling for intruders when you weren’t in. Now, at CES 2023, the company offered us a first real-world look at the hardware in flight, although it’s still reluctant to commit to a release date, or a price.
The whole package looks more like a kitchen countertop gadget, a smart bread bin or similar, rather than a security drone. It’s a little larger than it looks in Ring’s initial demo videos, although not by very much, and while it doesn’t look like any other drone on the market, it certainly sounds like one. If you’ve ever annoyed a pet with a toy mini drone, then you can expect a similarly disgruntled animal whenever this thing is on patrol.
Ring’s team did explain how this would work when it eventually made its debut, like the fact it’ll cover one floor — ideally the ground floor — in your home. You’ll train it by holding it (without obscuring the camera) and walking around your home in a series of flightpaths. You’re able to set multiple paths, and individual waypoints, so if you want to check the back door, or if you’ve left the stove on, you can without having to wait too long.
Should you spot something amiss, you can also set the camera to pause in mid-air and rotate around to surveil the local area. And there won’t be another app dedicated to controlling the drone, it’ll all be folded in to Ring’s existing app, at least when we finally see it in the real world. Sadly, Ring isn’t yet ready to share its thoughts on that matter, but the fact it’s ready to show off prototypes means it has to be closer to sale than not.
