Doorbot Becomes Ring, A Home Security Solution That Also Greets Your Visitors

After a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised $250,000 and a first-generation product that promised remote viewing of anyone coming to your front door over your home network, Doorbot is rebranding as Ring, and introduced redesigned hardware with more of a focus on home security, and a design that should help it better fit in with its surroundings and compliment existing house design choices.

Ring founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff admits that while Doorbot was mostly a success, it was also very much a first-generation product, complete with its own flaws and shortcomings, the feedback from which went into informing the design of Ring. Ring as a brand is designed to encompass more than just a telepresence solution for your front door; the intent was to create a company image that could apply to total home security, with a view to the future and connected home treatment of home protection.

“With the Ring doorbell, early on when we were designing it, we decided what we were really doing was designing the alarm system literally turned inside out,” Siminoff said. “Not an alarm system that copied what ABT is doing, what Canary is doing, or even what Dropcam was doing with its window and door systems, but actually building some kind of pre-crime system.”Ring can alert users to motion as soon as it’s detected, in addition to recording video, alerting users to any potential crime before it even happens. Often this means they can remotely “answer” the door even if they’re on the other side of the world, which can be enough to prevent something before it’s even happened. Two-way communication on the device works like a phone call, instead of the push-to-talk features of the Doorbot, which makes it easier to communicate with whoever’s at the door, and wide-angle video is also recorded to the cloud in HD resolution.

Whereas Doorbot was designed primarily as a doorbell, Ring is conceived of as a security measure first, and Siminoff admits that in addition to its functional evolution, the hardware has also gotten much better in terms of design.

“The Doorbot, I think it turned out in the end to be a ‘good’ product, but I certainly wouldn’t say it was the best product,” Siminoff said in an interview. “We now sort of looked at the world with, ‘we have to compare our products to Apple, regardless of whether we compete with them or not,’ and I don’t think we succeeded at that level.”Ring is available for pre-order now, for $199 until November 1st, at which time it goes back to the full price of $249. It comes in four different finishes, and free cloud-based video recording until January 1, 2015, at which time subscription options will be available. The device works with both iOS and Android, connects via Wi-Fi and is weather sealed. It can record 720p video at 30fps, has infrared LEDs for nighttime recording and features a 5,200mAh rechargeable battery (so it doesn’t require power, but it does require charging). Orders start shipping on November 3rd to early pre-order customers.