Ring embraces the end of the world, starts using home cameras to track wildfires
(2026/01/07)
- Reference: 1767747656
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/01/07/ring_cameras_wildfire/
- Source link:
A year after a series of fires obliterated communities in Los Angeles, Amazon's Ring security service has announced a feature called Fire Watch intended to mitigate future wildfire risk.
[1]Introduced in conjunction with CES 2026, Fire Watch is a feature in the Neighbors section of the Ring app, which Ring users use for neighborhood alerts and community safety updates. It's scheduled to roll out nationwide this spring.
Fire Watch relies on wildfire alerts and reporting from [2]Watch Duty , a nonprofit organization focused on the distribution of public safety information. It's intended as a way to spot and report signs of fire activity as soon as possible, to give first responders and people in affected areas as much time as possible to act.
[3]
When Watch Duty identifies a wildfire, the service sends notifications to nearby Ring users. Eligible outdoor cameras will then start monitoring for signs of fire using AI-based image recognition.
[4]
[5]
Camera owners should receive an alert if the AI detects smoke or flames, though Ring [6]cautions , "Your camera can make mistakes and might produce false positives (detecting fire when there isn't one) or false negatives (missing actual fires)."
"Ring began with a single doorbell I built in my garage – one that was sadly lost in the Palisades fire last year," said Jamie Siminoff, chief inventor of Ring, in a statement. "While that loss is small compared to the devastation experienced by families and the lives lost, it reinforces why this work matters so deeply to me."
[7]
The one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles fires also finds [8]California working to draft new regulations that require vegetation to be cleared around homes to reduce the risk of wildfire.
As part of the product launch, Ring said it has donated $1 million to Watch Duty to help the nonprofit expand across all 50 US states and to improve the organization's real-time fire reporting capabilities.
Ring is also implementing other AI capabilities to warn users of danger.
[9]
The AI Unusual Event Alert is designed to trigger when a Ring camera catches something unusual. The system computes its baseline for what's normal by analyzing [10]Ring Video Descriptions – text summaries of Video Preview Alerts and Event History entries – and then presents an alert when it determines that something out of the ordinary has occurred, although the documentation includes a caveat that "AI Video Descriptions might occasionally be inaccurate."
[11]Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching
[12]Researchers poison stolen data to make AI systems return wrong results
[13]AI's grand promise: Less drudgery, more complexity, same (or lower) pay
[14]Claude devs complain about surprise usage limits, Anthropic blames expiring bonus
Active Warnings uses AI-generated Video Descriptions in conjunction with context-specific audio-based warnings to deter threats. The idea is that when the camera spots a person, it can issue a real-time warning based on where the person is and what the person is doing.
AI Unusual Event Alerts and Active Warnings are expected to be available later this month to customers with compatible subscription plans who have Video Descriptions enabled, except in Illinois.
But what about privacy?
Ring AI Video Descriptions, AI Single Event Alert, and AI Unusual Event Alert are [15]unavailable in Illinois as a result of the state's privacy law.
The company's [16]Familiar Faces feature, which applies facial recognition technology to people captured on Ring cameras and was made available last month, has been disallowed even more widely – in Texas, Illinois, Portland (OR), and Quebec.
There's [17]still no comprehensive federal privacy law in the US and the current administration appears disinterested in pursuing one. That leaves civil liberties advocacy groups and privacy-minded politicians to push back against Ring, which the [18]ACLU and [19]EFF characterize as an enabler of techno-authoritarianism.
Last month, US Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) [20]released findings following his probe of Amazon's Ring, after having tried and failed to get Amazon to abandon the Ring Familiar Faces feature. His primary objection is that those who have had their faces scanned by a Ring Doorbell camera have not given their consent to have their faces captured and analyzed.
"Despite my warnings, Amazon unleashed a new privacy nightmare on the American people by releasing its Ring doorbell facial recognition feature without any meaningful privacy protections," said Senator Markey in a statement. "This is a giant step toward a dystopian future where Americans cannot leave their homes without being tracked and surveilled."
Amazon in [21]response [PDF] to Markey's inquiry said that it tells customers who enable Familiar Faces that "they should comply with applicable laws that may require obtaining consent." ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.ring.com/about-ring/ring-and-watch-duty-launch-new-fire-watch-feature-to-help-communities-stay-informed-during-wildfires/
[2] https://www.watchduty.org
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://ring.com/support/articles/pkhj7/search-party
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.npr.org/2026/01/06/nx-s1-5577155/california-law-la-wildfires-zone-zero-vegetation
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://ring.com/support/articles/97l0i/Ring-AI-Video-Descriptions-Single-Event-Alert-Beta
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/gmail_dropping_pop3/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/06/ai_data_pollution_defense/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/06/ai_could_damage_your_health/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/claude_devs_usage_limits/
[15] https://ring.com/support/articles/97l0i/Ring-AI-Video-Descriptions-Single-Event-Alert-Beta
[16] https://ring.com/support/articles/z3yhg/familiar-faces
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/us_federal_privacy_law_apra/
[18] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-massachusetts-and-updates
[19] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/amazon-ring-cashes-techno-authoritarianism-and-mass-surveillance
[20] https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/just-in-time-for-holiday-deliveries-sen-markeys-probe-exposes-amazons-alarming-privacy-violations-with-facial-recognition-technology-in-ring-doorbell
[21] https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/amazon_markey_response_ring_frt_november_2025.pdf
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
[1]Introduced in conjunction with CES 2026, Fire Watch is a feature in the Neighbors section of the Ring app, which Ring users use for neighborhood alerts and community safety updates. It's scheduled to roll out nationwide this spring.
Fire Watch relies on wildfire alerts and reporting from [2]Watch Duty , a nonprofit organization focused on the distribution of public safety information. It's intended as a way to spot and report signs of fire activity as soon as possible, to give first responders and people in affected areas as much time as possible to act.
[3]
When Watch Duty identifies a wildfire, the service sends notifications to nearby Ring users. Eligible outdoor cameras will then start monitoring for signs of fire using AI-based image recognition.
[4]
[5]
Camera owners should receive an alert if the AI detects smoke or flames, though Ring [6]cautions , "Your camera can make mistakes and might produce false positives (detecting fire when there isn't one) or false negatives (missing actual fires)."
"Ring began with a single doorbell I built in my garage – one that was sadly lost in the Palisades fire last year," said Jamie Siminoff, chief inventor of Ring, in a statement. "While that loss is small compared to the devastation experienced by families and the lives lost, it reinforces why this work matters so deeply to me."
[7]
The one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles fires also finds [8]California working to draft new regulations that require vegetation to be cleared around homes to reduce the risk of wildfire.
As part of the product launch, Ring said it has donated $1 million to Watch Duty to help the nonprofit expand across all 50 US states and to improve the organization's real-time fire reporting capabilities.
Ring is also implementing other AI capabilities to warn users of danger.
[9]
The AI Unusual Event Alert is designed to trigger when a Ring camera catches something unusual. The system computes its baseline for what's normal by analyzing [10]Ring Video Descriptions – text summaries of Video Preview Alerts and Event History entries – and then presents an alert when it determines that something out of the ordinary has occurred, although the documentation includes a caveat that "AI Video Descriptions might occasionally be inaccurate."
[11]Gmail preparing to drop POP3 mail fetching
[12]Researchers poison stolen data to make AI systems return wrong results
[13]AI's grand promise: Less drudgery, more complexity, same (or lower) pay
[14]Claude devs complain about surprise usage limits, Anthropic blames expiring bonus
Active Warnings uses AI-generated Video Descriptions in conjunction with context-specific audio-based warnings to deter threats. The idea is that when the camera spots a person, it can issue a real-time warning based on where the person is and what the person is doing.
AI Unusual Event Alerts and Active Warnings are expected to be available later this month to customers with compatible subscription plans who have Video Descriptions enabled, except in Illinois.
But what about privacy?
Ring AI Video Descriptions, AI Single Event Alert, and AI Unusual Event Alert are [15]unavailable in Illinois as a result of the state's privacy law.
The company's [16]Familiar Faces feature, which applies facial recognition technology to people captured on Ring cameras and was made available last month, has been disallowed even more widely – in Texas, Illinois, Portland (OR), and Quebec.
There's [17]still no comprehensive federal privacy law in the US and the current administration appears disinterested in pursuing one. That leaves civil liberties advocacy groups and privacy-minded politicians to push back against Ring, which the [18]ACLU and [19]EFF characterize as an enabler of techno-authoritarianism.
Last month, US Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) [20]released findings following his probe of Amazon's Ring, after having tried and failed to get Amazon to abandon the Ring Familiar Faces feature. His primary objection is that those who have had their faces scanned by a Ring Doorbell camera have not given their consent to have their faces captured and analyzed.
"Despite my warnings, Amazon unleashed a new privacy nightmare on the American people by releasing its Ring doorbell facial recognition feature without any meaningful privacy protections," said Senator Markey in a statement. "This is a giant step toward a dystopian future where Americans cannot leave their homes without being tracked and surveilled."
Amazon in [21]response [PDF] to Markey's inquiry said that it tells customers who enable Familiar Faces that "they should comply with applicable laws that may require obtaining consent." ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://blog.ring.com/about-ring/ring-and-watch-duty-launch-new-fire-watch-feature-to-help-communities-stay-informed-during-wildfires/
[2] https://www.watchduty.org
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://ring.com/support/articles/pkhj7/search-party
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.npr.org/2026/01/06/nx-s1-5577155/california-law-la-wildfires-zone-zero-vegetation
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aV3obE7lnxrSRDd2pRlyHgAAABU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://ring.com/support/articles/97l0i/Ring-AI-Video-Descriptions-Single-Event-Alert-Beta
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/gmail_dropping_pop3/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/06/ai_data_pollution_defense/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/06/ai_could_damage_your_health/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/05/claude_devs_usage_limits/
[15] https://ring.com/support/articles/97l0i/Ring-AI-Video-Descriptions-Single-Event-Alert-Beta
[16] https://ring.com/support/articles/z3yhg/familiar-faces
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/us_federal_privacy_law_apra/
[18] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-massachusetts-and-updates
[19] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/amazon-ring-cashes-techno-authoritarianism-and-mass-surveillance
[20] https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/just-in-time-for-holiday-deliveries-sen-markeys-probe-exposes-amazons-alarming-privacy-violations-with-facial-recognition-technology-in-ring-doorbell
[21] https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/amazon_markey_response_ring_frt_november_2025.pdf
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/