When (or if) Ring’s security camera drone flies into our homes in January, you won’t get the option to pilot it yourself. The Ring Drone Cam relies entirely on an “AI Pilot” system to follow pre-programmed routes and navigate autonomously around obstacles, with no manual control option available — and an embarrassing demonstration with CBS News might reveal why.
The video, broadcast on CBS Mornings and published on Threads, shows Ring founder Jamie Siminoff allowing technology reporter Jo Ling Kent to manually fly an early version of the drone via a mobile app with integrated controls.
Ling Kent: “Can I control it?”
Siminoff: “Yeah, so we can load manual controls.”
The demo then shows the drone crashing twice while being manually piloted. In the first instance, Ring reportedly told CBS News that the drone’s collision avoidance technology malfunctioned, and declined to share the video recorded by the drone prior to crashing. CBS News caught the second crash on camera, with the footage showing the drone colliding with a wall after failing to respond to manual controls. According to Siminoff, this occurred because the drone lost internet connectivity — which it also relies on to fly autonomously.
“If it loses connectivity, it’s supposed to stop and land,” Siminoff said in the video. “It did not there.”
Ring declined to show us the app in our own demonstration of the Drone Cam, and said it only works on pre-programmed flight paths. It seems that while manual flight controls were included at some stage of development, Ring won’t be making the feature available to customers when the Drone Cam launches in January.
“We explored a lot of features throughout the development, but autonomous flight to patrol points using the AI Pilot is the best customer benefit and experience,” Ring spokesperson Sam McGee said in a statement to The Verge. Ring didn’t respond to our question regarding whether the decision to not include manual controls was made following the CBS News demo.