Ring introduces a $250 home security drone directed by cloud-based AI

Ring’s next security cameras will move through homes and workplaces rather than stay fixed to a wall. Announced on November 10, 2026, its $250 Drone Cam and $1,000 Rover Cam introduce the Ring Robotics brand. For the home drone, the central design choice is sending video to Ring’s servers so AI can direct its flight.

The flying camera’s long route back

The Drone Cam follows an earlier attempt: Ring announced its Always Home Cam indoor drone in 2020. CEO Jamie Siminoff told WIRED that unusual situations kept forcing the team to add sensors. Those additions demanded more computing power, consumed more battery power and made flight harder. The new approach moves most of that intelligence off the aircraft instead of asking it to carry more equipment.

Ring says its custom AI Pilot receives the drone’s video on company servers and tells it where to go. The 165-gram aircraft retains enough onboard intelligence to land if its internet connection drops. Siminoff credits the cloud-based design with keeping the drone light and nimble; losing connectivity does not leave it without a landing fallback.

Patrol routes, not a remote-control toy

Owners cannot manually steer the Drone Cam. They can set custom routes and patrol schedules, or have it respond to motion, door and window sensor alerts. Ring puts flight time at about five to eight minutes per charge. The drone operates indoors, needs Wi-Fi and uses an Alexa Home Map created with existing Echo devices to help navigate.

The aircraft checks its motor health before every takeoff and will not fly if it detects a problem. A Ring spokesperson told WIRED that customers should stop flying a damaged unit and contact support. Siminoff also says its loud propellers are deliberate: their buzz would alert people if someone tried to use it for covert surveillance.

The Rover Cam takes the same AI Pilot into warehouses and factories. It shares much of its hardware with Amazon’s former Astro robot, but drops Astro’s face. A telescoping 4K camera surveys its surroundings, while a light projected onto the ceiling helps people locate the short robot on a factory floor.

Ring says the Rover can cover up to 5,000 square feet and patrol for about 30 minutes before docking. It can investigate sensor alerts, supports two-way talk and includes a siren. The business robot is scheduled for December 16, 2026; the home drone follows on January 27, 2027. Neither is available yet.

The server access behind the flight

Ring’s encryption design protects video in transit and rotates encryption keys every few minutes. But the company temporarily keeps a key on its servers to run cloud-based AI features, then deletes its copy. That leaves a period of server-side access rather than providing true end-to-end encryption, which would keep Ring from accessing the video. Ring accounts also require two-factor authentication.

For households considering the coming release, the decision extends beyond the buyer. Thorin Klosowski, a senior security and privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told WIRED that people should think through how a surveillance robot would make other household members and visitors feel. He described owning such a device as a personal choice.