Seemingly against all notions of common sense, Amazon announced Tuesday that it’s moving forward with its in-home surveillance drone.
First announced in September of 2020, the Always Home Cam is a flying security camera designed to move around customers’ homes on pre-programmed routes — streaming video the entire time. As of Tuesday, customers can sign up for a waiting list to purchase the $249 device.
“When you’re away, you can just press a button in the Ring app and it will fly a preplanned route and show you what’s going on,” explained an Amazon blog post. “It can also be set to do routes based on a triggered event, like flying to a Ring Door Alarm sensor when it’s tripped in Away mode.”
Amazon’s announcement does make a small concession to what will undoubtedly be the avalanche of privacy concerns raised by autonomous, mobile, internet-connected cameras moving about customers’ homes.
“The camera lens is covered when it’s in the dock,” promises Amazon, “and it only films when it’s in motion.”
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That’s good and particularly relevant, as Amazon admitted in 2020 that an unspecified number of employees had tried to access customers’ Ring video footage. Yikes.
