Ring Unveils $250 Indoor Drone Cam and $1,000 Rover Cam Patrol Robot
Amazon's Ring unveiled a $250 indoor security drone and a $1,000 patrol robot for businesses on November 10, 2026. CEO Jamie Siminoff says the drone flies room to room to check alarms. It ships January 27, 2027, pending Federal Communications Commission approval.
Amazon's Ring unveiled the $250 Ring Drone Cam, an indoor security drone, and a $1,000 patrol robot for businesses called the Ring Rover Cam on Tuesday, November 10, 2026. The launch pushes Amazon deeper into home surveillance at a time when Ring still faces privacy criticism.
The Ring Drone Cam flies from room to room, including upstairs, and records video by day or night. When an alarm or a sensor on a window, door or other security device goes off, the textbook-sized drone follows a pre-set path to investigate. Users can also send it out at any time.
At a demo in New York on Monday, Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff pitched the drone as a deterrent as well as a monitor. Its built-in LED lights are part of that.
"If someone is going around your house at night, and your motion detector goes off on your Ring doorbell, imagine if you see spotlights and something flying across the window," Siminoff said. "You're probably not going to go into that house."
How the drone works
The drone weighs 165 grams and flies five to eight minutes per charge before returning to its dock. It has two plastic-encased propellers that buzz loudly in the air. Users cannot steer it by hand, but they can set custom flight routes and patrol schedules.
Most of its intelligence sits in the cloud. The drone streams video to Ring's servers, where an agent the company calls an "AI Pilot" directs its path. The drone can land by itself if it loses internet, and it runs a motor health check before every takeoff.
It needs a Wi-Fi network and uses the Alexa Home Map from existing Echo devices to navigate. Siminoff said it will not fly outside, in line with Federal Aviation Administration rules that limit drones to a pilot's line of sight. "We have told our customers not to do that because it's illegal," he said. Ring has also built in guardrails to keep it indoors.
Because it is lighter than 250 grams and cannot operate outdoors, the drone does not need to be registered with the aviation regulator. Siminoff said it complies with US regulations and is assembled in Texas.
Rover Cam and privacy
The Ring Rover Cam repurposes Amazon's Astro home robot, which launched in 2021 and has seen few upgrades. It is a display on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscope camera. It adds a built-in siren, two-way audio and a light tower that shines on the ceiling so users can track where it is.
Ring said privacy is the default mode for both devices, and both flash an LED light when recording. Siminoff said Ring uses what it calls Throw Away the Key Encryption, which encrypts video in transit and rotates keys every few minutes. Ring briefly holds a key to run cloud AI features before deleting its copy, so it is not true end-to-end encryption.
Amazon bought Ring in 2018. The company has been dogged by privacy concerns, mainly over its partnerships with police. This year it drew renewed scrutiny over a Super Bowl ad for an AI pet-finding tool called "Search Party", then canceled an integration with police technology provider Flock Safety.
Ring first previewed the drone, then called the Always Home Cam, in 2020. Siminoff said he waited until the design, sensors and data processing were right.
The Ring Rover Cam begins shipping on December 16. The Ring Drone Cam ships in the US on January 27, 2027, pending approval from the Federal Communications Commission.
"People like indoor cameras, but they don't necessarily want them everywhere around their home," Siminoff said.
