The $250 lightweight flying camera relies on cloud-based navigation to patrol rooms, alongside a new rolling robot for businesses.
Ring announced a mini indoor security drone on Tuesday under a new division called Ring Robotics, setting the price at $249.99.
The flying camera weighs about 160 grams, or roughly 5.8 ounces, and is designed to lift off autonomously to check areas inside a house that stationary cameras cannot see, CNET reported. Ring founder and chief executive Jamie Siminoff demonstrated the device in a staged home environment, where it hovered at eye level before flying into an adjacent room to scan the space and returning to its base.
How the flying camera works
To keep the drone light, Ring stripped away most on-board sensors and offloaded its navigation tasks to cloud-based processing called AI Pilot, according to TechRadar. The drone retains only basic native programming, such as connecting to Wi-Fi and landing.
To set up flight paths, owners carry the device through their home to generate a digital floor plan that Siminoff called a digital twin. The system identifies rooms and proposes patrol points near windows, doors or nurseries. Users can monitor homes up to 3,500 square feet and direct the drone to fly up and down stairways.
Equipped with front and bottom 2K cameras and bright LED lights, the flyer streams live or recorded video to an app and can shine lights out windows if outdoor sensors detect visitors. The drone also pairs with other Ring door and window sensors to investigate automatically when a trigger trips. It cannot detect ceilings, however, and if local Wi-Fi drops out, the craft lands immediately where it is.
Siminoff confirmed the drone produces an intentional, loud whirring sound during flight, comparing it to an alert mechanism. “It’s loud — we think that’s a feature. This thing is not gonna sneak up on you,” Siminoff told TechRadar. The noise and lights are intended to alert household members and frighten off intruders.
Years of scrapped prototypes
The release follows roughly a decade of development that began in 2016, before Ring was acquired by Amazon. Early attempts stalled because the company tried to build heavy, sensor-packed robots that drained batteries too quickly.
The outlets reported different timelines for Ring’s earlier public attempts. CNET noted that the company announced an indoor drone called the Ring Always Home Cam in 2020 through an invitation-only program. TechRadar reported that Ring had packaged drones in boxes ready for launch in 2021 before shelving them over design compromises, limited flight times and privacy concerns. A third iteration prepared in 2025 was also abandoned before Ring overhauled the architecture to rely on cloud computing.
Privacy controls and flight limits
The drone’s battery provides between five and eight minutes of flight on a full charge. Recharging in its base station takes between 40 minutes and an hour.
To address safety and privacy concerns, the craft encloses all four propellers inside protective cages. The cameras stop recording as soon as the drone lands, and the charging dock physically blocks the camera lenses while the device rests inside. Digital safeguards include two-factor authentication and video encryption matching Ring’s doorbells.
The drone does not navigate around large groups of people if a path is blocked, and the app does not offer a split-screen view to watch doorbell and drone feeds at the same time.
Pricing, release dates and a business rover
The Ring Drone Cam will sell in dark gray for $249.99 in the United States. Preorders were not active on Amazon immediately after the announcement. TechRadar reported that US shipments start on January 27, while CNET reported deliveries are scheduled to begin in late January 2027.
Alongside the drone, Ring introduced the Ring Rover Cam, a wheeled security robot aimed at small-to-medium businesses priced at $999.99. Built on the platform of the discontinued Amazon Astro patrol robot, the Rover Cam carries a periscope camera that rises to roughly four feet, conducts 30-minute patrols, and projects a blue light onto ceilings so staff can locate it. During emergencies, it sounds a siren and switches to a flashing red light. The Rover Cam begins shipping in the US on December 16.
