Ride the Lightning

Introducing the Ring Car Cam: “Alexa, I’m Getting Pulled Over”

September 29, 2020

A recent CNET post introduced the Ring Car Cam, a dual-camera dashcam with connected features powered by Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. It records video of the road and the vehicle's cabin as you drive, which in the case of an event – perhaps a fender bender – it can send to the cloud for retrieval.

When a severe impact is detected, Emergency Crash Assistance is triggered and an audio call is made to a response center to determine if the driver is OK. Respond that you're fine and no action is taken. Ask for help or fail to respond and emergency services are directed to you. The system will also try to contact the driver's phone if you don't respond.

The feature that is getting all the buzz includes a Traffic Stop mode that can record interactions with the police, saving the audio and video to the cloud. When being pulled over, drivers can say, "Alexa, I'm getting pulled over," and the unit will verbally communicate that it's recording and streaming the content to the cloud. Traffic Stop can also notify a list of driver-specified emergency contacts.

"Traffic stops can be a time when having video is important, so that everyone remains on their best behavior," said Ring's Head of Mobile Products Nathan Ackerman. "So, we developed a feature to support that."

I love the "best behavior" line – we're sure not seeing a lot of that on our roads.

The Car Cam is also in protection mode when parked, ready to turn on and record video if the sensors detect bumps or loud noises. The owner is notified and can decide whether to watch the video or sound the alarm. And because sometimes you might not want a camera watching your every move, the Cam will feature "helpful privacy controls like a physical camera shutter to electronically disable the interior video and audio."

If I were much younger, I might appreciate that . . .

"The Ring Car Cam is a part of the overall Ring system and I think 'linked devices' is a concept that's really powerful here," said Ackerman. "It's not just a single camera; it's a camera working with all of your Ring devices. So maybe an alarm trigger in your driveway turns on your house's floodlights and the cameras on those floodlights. The Car Cam can work within the larger Ring system and connect all of your devices together."

The Ring Car Cam will retail for $200 and require an LTE subscription to upload video and access connected services. Subscription pricing hasn't been announced yet, but Ring says it will be "affordable" and can be added to an existing Ring subscription.

In today's climate, I'm sure Ring will have no problem getting hordes of willing buyers.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
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