Amazon’s Ring Targets Pro Security Market With New Services

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.’s Ring smart doorbell unit is moving beyond its roots in do-it-yourself home security, releasing a set of products targeting the market for professional security services.

Ring on Tuesday launched a $20-a-month subscription that offers monitoring and backup cellular web connection, designed to kick in if home internet service goes out. The new offering was launched alongside the $250 Ring Alarm Pro, which can store video locally, in addition to Ring’s servers. An edition designed to monitor construction sites, sold exclusively through Home Depot Inc. stores, will cost $400.

With a separate service, called Virtual Security Guard, customers can have Ring forward video that triggers a motion alert to third-party monitoring companies. Depending on what agents on the other side of the video see, they can tap into the camera’s speaker to communicate with the person, activate a camera’s siren or call emergency services. The program, available initially on an invitation-only basis, will be backed at first by Rapid Response Monitoring Services Inc., and eventually other providers, Ring said. The company didn’t announce pricing.

Those and other announcements came during Amazon’s new devices event, held by webcast on Tuesday. 

Ring started by making a web-connected doorbell capable of streaming video to a smartphone app and was acquired by Amazon in 2018. Its lineup in recent years has expanded to include indoor and outdoor cameras and security alarm kits, a clear challenge to established security outfits like ADT Inc.

Ring on Tuesday also said the Ring Always Home Cam, a flying drone designed to zoom around the house and investigate strange sounds that Ring announced last year, is now available on an invite-only basis. “It turns out, learning to fly is pretty tough,” Ring founder Jamie Siminoff said during Tuesday’s event. 

Users of select recent Ring video doorbell models will also soon be able to set up alerts that packages have arrived by designating an area in the camera’s field of view. A similar new capability, coming to the Ring Spotlight Cam Battery, is designed to alert a user to an object, such as an open garage door or a car in the driveway.

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