Ring

The Ring video doorbell, mounted next to the front door of a house
Type	Subsidiary
Predecessor	Bot Home Automation
Founded	2012; 7 years ago (2012) (as Doorbot)
Founder	Jamie Siminoff
Headquarters	Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Products	Video doorbells Outdoor cameras Home alarm systems
Services	Cloud recording Alarm monitoring
Owner	Amazon (2018–present)
Number of employees	1,300 (2018)[1]
Website	ring.com/

Ring (formerly Doorbot) is a home security company owned by Amazon.^[2] Ring manufactures a range of home security products that incorporate outdoor motion based cameras and doorbells, such as the Ring Video Doorbell, that was featured on ABC's Shark Tank in 2013.^[2] The Ring Video Doorbell is a smart doorbell device that allows users to monitor and operate their front, back and garage doors remotely.^[3][4] When the doorbell is pressed, the Ring application begins a VOIP video call to a connected device, so that the owner can see and speak to visitors.^[5][6][7][8]

Ring's head office is in Santa Monica, California with a secondary office in Kyiv, Ukraine.

History[edit]

Ring was founded in 2012 as Doorbot by founder Jamie Siminoff. Doorbot was crowdfunded via Christie Street, and raised US$364K, more than the $250k requested.^[9][10] Since then, the company raised more than $200 million in investments and counts Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Qualcomm Ventures, Goldman Sachs, DFJ Growth and Sir Richard Branson—founder of Virgin Group—as prominent investors.^{[11][12][13][14]} The company's first product, released in 2013, was a doorbell with Internet connectivity, a high-definition camera, and a motion detector.^[2] The company has since release multiple iterations of a video doorbell and other home security products.^[14]

Shark Tank appearance[edit]

In 2013, Siminoff appeared on Shark Tank, asking for $700,000 for his company, at the time called DoorBot, which he estimated was worth $7 million.^[15]Kevin O’Leary made an offer as a potential investor that Siminoff declined.^[16] After being on Shark Tank, Siminoff rebranded the company and it received $5 million in additional sales.^[16]

Amazon acquisition[edit]

Ring was acquired by Amazon in February 2018 for an estimated value of between $1.2 billion and $1.8 billion in February 2018.^[17][18]

Products[edit]

In 2015, Ring released the Stick-Up Cam which incorporated the same features as the doorbell but without the actual doorbell button. In 2016, the Ring Floodlight Cam was introduced with two 1100 lumen LED floodlights. In 2017, Ring released its second version of the device, Ring Doorbell 2, with a rechargeable battery pack, night vision, a motion detector, speaker, and microphone.^[19] Ring Neighborhoods is an additional security feature that helps non-video doorbell users monitor suspicious activity on their app.^[20] In July 2018, Ring launched an alarm security kit, which includes a keypad, siren, and motion sensors.^[21][22][23] At CES 2019, Ring announced a peephole camera.^[24]

Home security[edit]

In 2016, Ring partnered with Los Angeles Police Department and installed Ring Video Doorbells on 10 percent of homes in Wilshire Park, California. The LAPD’s data showed that there was a 55 percent decrease in break-ins within the first six months of the doorbells being installed.^[4][2] In addition to break-in prevention, Ring products have been cited as aiding the police in identifying perpetrators.^[25][26]

Privacy concerns[edit]

In January 2019, it was uncovered that employees at Ring's two offices have access to the video recordings from all Ring devices.^[27] In addition, The Intercept reported that the video data is stored unencrypted.^[28]

References[edit]