Ring’s line of doorbells are some of the best-selling on the market today, but as the smart home sector has expanded, so has the company’s lineup. The list of products Ring debuted or is showing off at CES 2018 is impressive, including new camera-less smart lights and two new indoor/outdoor cameras, as well as a preview of the upcoming Ring Security System due this spring.
On Thursday, Ring founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff stopped by the DT CES booth to talk about the new products and discuss the future of the company. Siminoff stressed that the company does not like to sell on fear like other security products, but rather around the idea of a “ring of security.”
Each part of the product lineup plays a role in this strategy, which Ring has notably enlisted NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal to promote: The doorbells are a ring of security around your front door, its line of cameras and lights a ring of security around your home, and its Neighborhood app feature a ring of security around your community.
On that last point, Neighborhood allows you to both share and view video content from other Ring users in the community. Another useful feature alerts you to local incidents, including police activity, fires, or gas leaks. That functionality was added to the platform last year.
Like all of its other products, Ring devices continue to be low-cost and “DIY.” With a multitude of power options — solar, battery, and hardwired — as well as easy to install mounting, no professional installation is required. Siminoff says that’s something that the company prides itself on, and has no intention to change any time in the future, calling it “effective and affordable security.”
One area where Ring does plan to change is interoperability. Siminoff admitted that the Ring platform has been too closed off, but he said that had more to do with the fact that it didn’t have the resources to work on third-party integrations. Now that its much bigger, 2018 is set to be a year where the company starts to focus on playing nice with other smart home devices.
