I like this item that was noted in one of the articles…
Meanwhile, Ring is responding to users on its Twitter page after news of the acquisition, noting that HomeKit support is expected to be forthcoming.
Interesting amazon decided to go for ring despite the multiple patent lawsuits against them.
Wow.
for more than $1 billion
I still think they bought Blink to get the patented technology, not the devices themselves. The ring brand is much more established.
I’ll bet ADT is kicking themselves over having settled the patent suit with ring, as a ring security system with Amazon behind it is a much bigger competitive threat.
Haven’t they settled all the patent lawsuits by now? I thought ADT was the last one outstanding, but maybe I missed one.
Skybell filed one after the adt suit was settled, though admittedly I haven’t tried to stay up to date on the status of that one and so I’m not sure if it’s ongoing or they settled.
And, as went the way of Blink, will Ring support be discontinued as well?
Blink was never officially supported by SmartThings. Ring is.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed ring will stay at least some what autonomous…I hope.
Skybell is in a zonoff type situation – – The best thing they have left is their patents. Amazon may have ring settle with them just to get that done with.
So now we’ll have Amazon with a low-cost security system including a video doorbell, nest with something similar, and Yale and August with an interesting product set. HomeKit has Honeywell lyric integration now. If ADT/smartthings wants to compete in that niche, I think they need to get a camera integrated pretty soon.
Since Blink’s video doorbell is supposed to come out later this year, I agree that amazon probably did this for the Ring brand name more than anything else.
And maybe the security system. Blink’s been promising one, but ring is further along.
I’m wondering if we’ll ever actually see the Blink “seecurity” system. They announced it at CES last year, and then hardly even a peep about it during CES this year, but the video doorbell was announced to much fanfare.
That is very true.
However, it doesn’t mean that Amazon won’t pull the plug between Ring / ST somewhere in the future, if they are planning to bring an entirely closed ecosystem of their own to market.
Here’s hoping to free cloud storage for Amazon Prime members
Amazon will soon own our children.
(Fun bit of trivia: Ring debuted to the world on Shark Tank back in 2013, then known as “DoorBot”. They wanted $700k for 10% of the company, but no one took the deal.)
That 700k is now worth 100 million.
Amazon said they were going to let ring run independtly…but time will tell. I have the doorbell and was planning to get the motioon light and 1 camera but now.not sure…I guess t let the smart home games begin.
I actually kinda regret buying my Ring Pro. It’s not at all how they market it.
I expect the incoming “you need good wifi, get an extender, get onto 5G not 2.4G” etc comments - even with all that, it’s still not as good as I was expecting.
So if Amazon do shake it all up, I’m all up for it. They might put their development prowess to improve it where Ring couldn’t.
If Amazon gets ring to fix there delays then tthat would be great but the reason.tyhey are buying everything is for the software, patents etc. Why waste time in research when u can just spend a few billion here & there.