Ring owners are returning their cameras

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/shopping/ring-owners-are-returning-their-cameras-here-s-how-much-you-can-get/ar-AA1W8Qa3

by c420 • 5 months ago

418 291 5 months ago

msn.com

joecool1029• 5 months ago

Wonder if this will still be the case now that it’s been announced they are suspending the partnership with Flock.

trymas• 5 months ago

<adjusting my tinfoil hat> wouldn’t it be easy to circumvent this? They can easily cooperate with some other chain of shady businesses that will cooperate with Flock or government surveillance.

glitchinc• 5 months ago

Ring still partners with Axon [1] as part of the Community Requests feature [2]. Since terminating the partnership with Flock is solely a PR play, the answer to your question will likely depend on if consumers en masse use this opportunity to educate themselves on the gravity of the “loss of control (of your data) in exchange for convenience” paradox of cloud services and advocate for additional changes to be made to the Ring platform, or if Amazon’s PR capability will find a way to improve consumer sentiment towards Ring products and services without addressing privacy and surveillance concerns.

[1] https://www.axon.com

[2] https://ring.com/support/articles/uds27/Community-request

mihaaly3• 5 months ago

Flock was not the problem. The acts of Ring was the problem (partnering with Flock and forcing opt-in, among many). People bought Ring, people return Ring.

Mistletoe• 5 months ago

“You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.”

– George Orwell, 1984

Ekaros• 5 months ago

Ah, the time before infrared cameras... Makes one think that now we can have cameras that can see as well in what appears darkness for humans.

trhway• 5 months ago

to get some feeling of it one can watch footage from Ukraine where drones with IR hunt soldiers at night. At the beginning of war, when soldiers didn't yet started to take it into account, there would even be whole groups walking like they would be at night feeling invisible, and that would be the last seconds before the explosion lights up the screen.

These days there is more experience with it, and for example to get "invisible" in IR one of the tricks used by the stormtroopers there is to put on an IR-protective coverall (it works to some extent and for short time) and to walk over warm asphalt.

In general even without IR the regular camera sensors these days are very sensitive, and you can pull a pretty good image out from the darkness by shifting dynamic range well down.

navigate8310• 5 months ago

Not to forget WiFi positioning by fingerprinting your silhouette.

asdff6• 5 months ago

Funny how a single superbowl ad from Ring themselves was able to do in one weekend what a thousand and one anti Ring bloggers were unable to do for the past 10 years straight. This commercial and the response will probably be studied in marketing classes.

pjmlp5• 5 months ago

It is very simple, most regular people don't read random blogs, however they do watch Superbowl.

This is to be studied by geeks, how to approach non-technical audiences.

avhception• 5 months ago

By buying a superbowl ad?

mihaaly3• 5 months ago

Getting wildly and widely popular in the generic population? That's what the self proclaimed influencers try to do as well, right?

dev_l1x_be• 5 months ago

Classic blind sighted tech view is that p50 people behave as p99 people.

flyinghamster• 5 months ago

Here we have a problem: Hollywood tropes. Shows like The Big Bang Theory aka "Blackface for Nerds" make it nearly impossible to even talk to normals without sounding like Sheldon F. Cooper.

herbst4• 5 months ago

What happened?

Zealotux• 5 months ago

The ad https://youtu.be/OheUzrXsKrY?si=oHH1hBRIYjNNgPZT

UltraSane5• 5 months ago

Ring ran a Superbowl ad showing their cameras being used to find a lost dog. This made people realize they can be used to track people just as easily.

netdur• 5 months ago

Now you know why Superbowl ads cost millions and bloggers are just bloggers

roysting• 5 months ago

Am I missing something? I thought it was not the ad itself, but rather the combination with the reporting on that Guthrie abduction, which claimed that although there was no subscription to the recording service, the video data was still recovered, i.e., recorded and sent to Google servers.

Regardless of how you see it, although the ad was a kind of manipulative reframing of surveillance infrastructure by using pets as means of psychological manipulation, the Super Bowl ad seems to have just been an unfortunate (or fortunately) timed ad that caused people to glimpse through the cracks in the control matrix being constructed around them.

I don’t think it will really make a difference though. It’s like wildebeest watching their compatriot snatched underwater by a crocodile, to only momentarily pause before venturing right into the same river.

nilleo• 5 months ago

I think the Guthrie case had Nest cameras, thus the Google servers.

willis9362• 5 months ago

This kind of story has been in the news cycle every few weeks for years. The ad is what's new.

SwtCyber3• 5 months ago

The bigger issue is whether users feel they have clear, informed control over what's collected and who can access it

stevage2• 5 months ago

That's a great analogy.

jamestest2e4p6x• 5 months ago

The internet found out you can point a camera outside.

MiddleEndian• 5 months ago

Anecdotally, my physical therapist (far more connected to the cultural zeitgeist than I am) brought up the ad yesterday and talked about how creepy it was.

jkestner2• 5 months ago

Humans can adapt more quickly than wildebeest. Join advocacy groups for your own morale, continue to get better at communicating these dangers to the mainstream, be that person who offers alternatives to your non-technical circle.

Yeah, it’s a timing thing. Government surveillance with commercial partnerships is more aggressive now, and the stories are chipping away at our collective ignorance until something like this connects the dots for people. I’m off in my corner of culture and don’t watch social video so I didn’t appreciate the work that streamers/explainers have done to alert normal people to these problems. But those videos were more effective at getting Flock out of my city than any canvassing I did. It’s nice to see conspiracy brains turned to an actual cabal.

sjducb• 5 months ago

What did the ad say? I didn’t watch the Superbowl.

serial_dev• 5 months ago

There was an ad, how the Ring cameras can organize a "search party" for your "puppies", basically turning the whole neighborhood into a surveillance operation. Even though they wrapped the whole big brother feature into "sad little girl lost their cute puppy", it was too obvious.

Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OheUzrXsKrY

With that said, I'm not sure it will have any long term effect on them... sure some people return their stuff, make a post about it, but it's like (insert people with certain political affiliation) cancelling (insert big brand) by burning their stuff. It makes a splash in social, but I'm not sure it really significantly changes user behavior.

Lio• 5 months ago

"With only the computational power of a small dictator led nation state, we launch a new feature that's definitely, only for dogs."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFblZ_-9q4&t=1s

DrScientist6• 5 months ago

That one image of all the camera's apparently remotely controlled to scan the entire neighbourhood is something it's difficult to unsee.

The implication is obvious, the feel is inhuman.

The power of a few seconds of video is why TikTok had to be brought under control ( and sadly not just because of worrying about what others might do, but to specifically censor and promote specific messages ).

The issue really isn't about whether your neighbourhood has camera's, the question is who is in control.

pbhjpbhj2• 5 months ago

The power of a few seconds of video is why TikTok had to be brought under control

Didn't USA's current regime take over TikTok in order to use it for propaganda? Twitter-X was used so successfully that they're expanding their psyops.

TuringNYC• 5 months ago

The parody video was funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFblZ_-9q4&t=1s

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1r267k5/wyze_just_m...

dathinab6• 5 months ago

sadly where I live (not the US) most people using ring are the kind of older people which through non stop propaganda about how "dangerous it is" don't have any mind left to consider iff maybe that camera is as dangerous just in a different way

now that also brings us to the good news, which is a lot of people really don't like any form of internet connected cameras and the culture related to surveillance to it is very different here.

DangitBobby3• 5 months ago

I think most people were unaware or only very vaguely aware that your Ring camera would do anything but show you who's at the door.

xnx• 5 months ago

I hope whoever inside Ring warned about this ad gets a fat "I told you so" bonus.

mlrtime• 5 months ago

I didn't see the ad until your comment, then led me to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFblZ_-9q4

It's another ad of course but a pretty funny response and sums up the issue nicely.

em3rgent0rdr• 5 months ago

Stallman was right.

nehal3m2• 5 months ago

Is, he’s still with us.

mkl• 5 months ago

Was, he said it a long time ago. He has said a lot of things that sounded kind of far-fetched and paranoid at the time, but which were later demonstrated to be true, so "Stallman was right" is reappraising the past statement.

tokyobreakfast3• 5 months ago

It's easy to be right when you live outside the boundaries of reality.

E.g. he won't (didn't?) own a mobile phone, but is okay with borrowing someone else's. He won't use Wi-Fi where he has to log in but would happily borrow someone else's.

It's not being right; it's shifting responsibility in exchange for his own personal convenience.

psoundy• 5 months ago

It's called 'setting an example'.

One might disagree with value of the example being set, but I'm not sure I would characterize his choices as in any way convenient for him.

tamimio2• 5 months ago

it's shifting responsibility in exchange for his own personal convenience.

And? That’s actually one of the strategies to counter any risk, if you can’t avoid it or mitigate it, you transfer it.

sph• 5 months ago

It's easy to be right when you live outside the boundaries of reality.

This does not make any sense at all.

codyb2• 5 months ago

But if everyone acted like Stallman then solutions that have gone away such as public payphones would come back due to their requirement.

He doesn't give a crap if a random phone record of his appears in a random haystack, and that's kind of the point isn't it? It's the aggregated, crawlable stores that are the threat

There may be other issues with Stallman, but that behavior doesn't strike me as particularly inconsistent

ulrikrasmussen3• 5 months ago

Good. But people should not have pointed cameras into public spaces and live streamed everything to the cloud to begin with. Walking past a house with a camera doorbell makes me really uncomfortable, like I'm being watched.

asdff6• 5 months ago

I have a local one (reolink). Prompted by neighbors getting robbed unfortunately. Will this prevent crime? Maybe some but probably not all. But it would let me know if I have to file a stolen package claim or should wait on the package for a few more days. Plus it has been doubling as a trail camera for the local fauna I had no idea came by so frequently. It faces private property only as it is set up.

tehlike• 5 months ago

The local law enforcement will likely not have the time to chase individual small cases either...

colordrops• 5 months ago

Not sure why you are downvoted. Reolinks work without internet and can stream locally using rtsp. I have a doorbell cam from them and it works fine. If you block it from the internet you only get video and basic doorbell functionality though, which is fine.

FranklinJabar2• 5 months ago

You can always put the cameras inside the home and disable WAN access. Best of all worlds.

joshstrange2• 5 months ago

Yep, I had this setup for years. PoE cameras, connected directly to a Reolink NVR, that I could access over my vpn and then later WireGuard connection back home. I very much enjoyed that setup and it helped me a number of times.

Not only did it give me peace of mind but two specific examples come to mind. One was when the garbage company’s truck picked up my trash can, and never put it back down (the whole thing fell into the back of the truck). I was able to get a replacement can for free, otherwise I wouldn’t have had any clue where it disappeared off to.

The second time was when my first Steam Deck was stolen in-transit. You could tell from the very hollow sound the box made when the delivery person threw the box onto the porch. It helped prove that it wasn’t stolen off my porch (side note, screw UPS, bunch of thieves, I also had another Steam Deck stolen from one of their drop boxes, last time I ever used one, by one of their employees. No recourse at all, I just had to eat the ~$700. Also, Valve, stop shipping the Steam deck in an incredibly obvious box).

raw_anon_11115• 5 months ago

If I were a robber knowing everyone has cameras, wouldn’t I just wear a mask?

reaperducer3• 5 months ago

Will this prevent crime? Maybe

No. Unless your camera is being held by a human being who can take action.

Cameras do not prevent crime. That's just marketing.

All they do is let people watch crimes after they've happened, and share the videos to spread fear to other people, which then sells more cameras.

If doorbell cameras prevented crime, the internet would be full of videos of people trying to steal packages, then changing their minds when they see the camera.

Instead, it's all just recordings of a crime that has already been committed.

gspr6• 5 months ago

Here in Norway, and I assume in much of Europe, it's actually illegal. But that hasn't stopped anyone. The (little) discussion there's been on the topic has mostly centered around car sentry cams, which is very similar in nature. Sadly, the only state authority that seems to care is so underfunded that they can barely cover a fraction of these cases. And there's (rightfully) very little appetite for them to go after pretty much everyone with a relatively new car.

My armchair take is that we need to start going after those who provide the systems. If a regular person buys a streaming doorbell or a car with a sentrycam, it should be up to whoever takes his money and handles those streams to ensure that they're not doing illegal surveillance of public spaces, IMHO.

hdgvhicv4• 5 months ago

Once something illegal is culturally accepted it’s very difficult to remove, it requires a cultural shift.

It’s against the law to post cctv onto things like Facebook in the U.K. but people donor all the time. Early on the law could have banned cloud cameras but it’s too late now, far too many people like to answer front their phones. So glad I no ln get deliver pizzas.

mihaaly3• 5 months ago

Goods and products must adhere to regulations banning common wrongdoings. Safety standards, health standards, avoiding financial harm, but also privacy. With this I mean, you are absolutely right! Producers and/or sellers of products violating the standards of the society must be pursued! Common people have the convenience not knowing every and all big and small regulations setting the standards of the society when going into a shop buying gadgets or goods. Those active in a specific area must know the specifics of that area and adhere the rules. Should people be aware of radio emission standards when purchasing things working with electricity and validate themselves if the specific product will adere to those when used? Absolutely no! No chance of that. We, consumers, do not need to be aware and able to tell if some food from the grocery will harm people eating it but those should not be sold or produced in the first place. Same with other products in common - product related usual - situations, other rules, other aspects (here, privacy). Producers must know and avoid specific wrongdoings for the common use scenarios of that specific product.

anal_reactor2• 5 months ago

and I assume in much of Europe

No. In Poland it's legal to record everything, only when you publish the recordings you need the recorded people to agree.

The core issue is that "nothing to hide nothing to fear" argument is correct as long as the government is trustworthy. Not only that, but mass-surveilance greatly improves life because it allows much better crowd management. Case in point - speed cameras. Would you support the removal of all speed cameras in Norway?

consp• 5 months ago

It's a mess in Europe. It's different everywhere.

In the Netherlands you can record, but only share it with the cops and otherwise you need some clear exception (e.g. dashcam images with minor accidents to your insurer). In all other cases you can either not store them, at least not publicly and all cloud falls under public, or have to inform everyone about their presence on the images, or blurr every identifiable mark (e.g. faces, number plates, names etc). Pretty sure all cloud door cams violate that. So the cops sometimes ask for people's doorcam images, and they are allowed to do that, but likely the people providing them will have recorded it illegally due to it being stored on some cloud account.

This question has already been answered by security footage videos and as long as they are overwritten withing a certain time, stored non publicly and only shared with allowed officials, it's ok.

There are exceptions, but very limited, like clear public good (e.g. whistleblowers).

ulrikrasmussen3• 5 months ago

Yes, it's the same in Denmark. And I unfortunately expect that the law will eventually be relaxed to allow it because it helps law enforcement. We have very little media coverage about the illegality of private people pointing cameras at public spaces, and the most frequent mentions of this is when the police use footage from such cameras to solve a crime. A couple of years ago there was a very high profile kidnapping of a young woman where the footage from a car sentry cam helped the police solve it. They eventually saved the woman and caught the guy who turned out to be a murderer and serial rapist.

Now the cat is out of the bag and it has become an untenable position to be against this type of surveillance. And don't get me wrong, I want rapists and murderers to be caught, but I am at the same time also worried about the effect that this will have down the line, in particular when live AI analysis of footage becomes cheap enough that it gets integrated into these cameras so the cameras can report (what they deem to be) suspicious activity automatically.

UltraSane5• 5 months ago

The world is going to be filled with millions of cameras using AI to analyze the video in real time.

Epskampie• 5 months ago

Doesn't have to be. Here in the Netherlands it's actually illegal to (permanently) film public space, and people can and will point that out to any offenders.

heigh• 5 months ago

I think it’s only fair the citizens are allowed to record if the government does it en mass

assimpleaspossi6• 5 months ago

And then what?

marcosdumay• 5 months ago

Unless the world becomes full of people that vandalize cameras on short notice, or countries that criminalize those cameras.

vachina• 5 months ago

like I'm being watched.

Working as intended? It’s a wireless CCTV.

willis9362• 5 months ago

Like they're being watched by every data broker customer on the planet, not their neighbor.

Sharlin• 5 months ago

Being recorded while on public property is not illegal in many jurisdictions, but it's certainly iffy and should not be normalized. Any cameras should be directed so that they're exclusively aimed at your own property.

ulrikrasmussen3• 5 months ago

I'm walking on the pavement. And yes, it is illegal to point cameras at public spaces in my country (Denmark), but the law is not really enforced.

xethos• 5 months ago

What part of Ring or Nest's cloud-connected camera network do you consider "closed circuit"?

SwtCyber3• 5 months ago

I do think clearer norms would help

vitorfblima• 5 months ago

This. The survelliance state smiles when people find ok to film their neighbors for "safety" purposes.

assimpleaspossi6• 5 months ago

Nobody's watching you. Nobody cares that you're walking by.

crims0n• 5 months ago

Agreed, I know it’s juvenile but ever time that stupid chime plays I just want to throw up a finger.

ghtbircshotbe• 5 months ago

I'm interested in the laws around these cameras. Is it illegal to record eg parts of your neighbor's private property? Are you liable or is Amazon?

lifestyleguru5• 5 months ago

American surveillance is one thing. All over Europe people install Chinese IP cameras mostly from paranoic and imaginary reasons. Camera literally facing neighbour's windows and doors and their neighbour's own camera. Nobody understands that it's economically impossible to sell IP camera with a mobile app and cloud storage of video for 150 EUR. Their business model is not simply selling cameras.

EDIT. I'm really confused how you concluded that this comment is anti European. Quit whatever drugs and social media if something like this is triggering your paranoia.

omnifischer2• 5 months ago

All over Europe is generalisation. At least in France, Germany, Switzerland it is too much pain and paperwork to get any camera installed. If you are worried about chinese then seriously you cannot live.

pjmlp5• 5 months ago

In theory, in practice you can get a random one bought from Temu, and unless some neighbour calls in the authorities, no one will know.

cybrox• 5 months ago

You are technically correct but also very wrong. Yes, it is a lot of pain to get the paperwork done and you have a high chance of being rejected without a good reason. I know dozens of people who run cheap, chinese IP cams recording public spaces directly to dubious cloud services here in Switzerland. You just don't ask.

Work related: We sell solutions including CCTV and video-intercom and we have only recently started providing customers with stickers they can use to make those installations comply with regulations. Technically, it has been the responsibility of the customer installing the device, so us doing this is just nudging people towards compliance because nobody cares. I can guarantee you that there are tens of thousands of cameras here filming public ground and it is not prosecuted. In fact, someone at the office put one up a long time ago for a PTZ demo (not recording) that was not compliant and it took almost 10 years until we got ordered to take it down.

Most of these are not recording, only recording situationally or only locally. Still not legal technically. However, ever since cheap cloud-connected doorbells have become available, they have definitely been installed here. They do not comply with regulations whatsoever and next to nothing is done about it.

notrealyme123• 5 months ago

Where is this comment coming from? Why Europe? Are those cameras not used in other places? Are they specifically made for Europe?

Are there sources?

Or is this just a fantasy story?

pjmlp5• 5 months ago

The usual anti-Europe narrative that is starting to be so common over here.

lifestyleguru5• 5 months ago

Are there sources?
Or is this just a fantasy story?

People buy them from Ali, Temu, Allegro, eMAG and install all over the place. Simply freaking take a walk and look around.

wiseowise2• 5 months ago

Nobody understands that it's economically impossible to sell IP camera with a mobile app and cloud storage of video for 150 EUR.

Then maybe those cunts can sell a camera without cloud storage for once? Or the one that connects to local hub, like Chinese cameras do?

lnsru2• 5 months ago

The camera is absolutely doable for 150€. Just look what raspberry Pi costs. The cut all the corners, take ancient ddr2 memory, ancient processor, optimize every piece for manufacturing and it’s done. Of course, CE testing and regulatory nonsense is not included. But would you buy 150€ camera or the same camera with proper certification for 200€?

AlexandrB2• 5 months ago

What's not doable is the cloud storage and app maintenance for that fixed price.

aweiher• 5 months ago

Personally, I know nobody who has the need to install this type of crappy surveillance shit on their front door in Europe to start with.

You frame it like the only alternative to American surveillance cameras is Chinese surveillance cameras, but no cameras seems to be no option for you.

Who is the one with the paranoid, imaginary reasons?

Edit: Ah btw, here in germany we have of course cameras to see who is in front of the door, it is called Türsprechanlage. It does not record, it does sent to the cloud, it is not smart, and is developed and produced in Germany, for example by Siedle.

lifestyleguru5• 5 months ago

I don't understand why all answers make it all about Germany. I say "Europe" and you say "but here in Germany". If you insist on Germany I saw plenty of cheap Chinese IP cameras in Turkish, Arab, and Asian districts of German cities and in tourist hotspots of German cities. Every noodle and kebab place has at least one inside or outside. IP camera, doorbell camera, surveillance camera, call it however you want.

eknkc• 5 months ago

I predict 100 returns in total and then everybody forgets about this in a week. I'm not cheering for this outcome but it's the sad reality.

tokyobreakfast3• 5 months ago

In their defense, Redditors returning a throwaway piece of electronics then posting about it is probably the biggest sense of accomplishment they'll get all month.

It takes a special level of delusion to think you're pulling one over on the billion-dollar company who just paid millions to advertise this capability during the Super Bowl as if everyone didn't already know.

Hasn't Ring been sharing video with law enforcement for years? Ignoring that zomg ICE is the Reddit cause du jour (these people live for this), did they just now figure out how cloud-connected cameras work?

I fully expect these to all be replaced with generic cameras from Amazon full of security holes, that upload all video to CCP-controlled servers in China.

lopis• 5 months ago

That's one reason why being in a Reddit bubble is dangerous. Reddit always seems to be boycotting something (including Reddit itself), but those boycotts rarely led anywhere. Then news websites pick up on Reddit as a source of news and the rest is echo effect.

kashunstva• 5 months ago

special level of delusion to think you're pulling one over on the billion-dollar company

Except that’s not the only reason to participate in such a boycott. Perhaps they simply do not want to participate in one voluntary node of participation in the surveillance capitalism network.

kelnos3• 5 months ago

I really want to disagree with this, and have more faith in humanity, but I suspect you are more or less right. Even if it's 1,000 or even 10,000 or 100,000 cameras returned, it'll likely amount to a nothingburger for Amazon.

To make a real statement here, we'd probably need several million returns in the US alone. (A quick search suggests more than 20M installs in the US.)

sharperguy• 5 months ago

It's typically with this type of headline "X people are doing Y" means "at least 2 X people did Y".

t0lo• 5 months ago

America- land of those with strong moral convictions and high follow through :)

webdevver• 5 months ago

unfortunately having always-on cameras pointing around the house is kind of an arms race. if you don't, someone else will, and their word will be the one that gets taken seriously. so you better have one too!

its kind of like how in videos of altercations, the first thing all parties involved will do nowadays is grab their phones and start recording.

CodeCompost• 5 months ago

Any good alternatives? Preferably one that stores images on a local docker instance running within my network.

jsumrall• 5 months ago

Unifi makes a doorbell and consumer (and commerical) security cameras which run and store data on a local device, but still reachable online with their app connecting directly to your device. I used their dream machine pro with a big HDD, but they're released a few other devices in the last few years which might be cheaper and use SSDs. And I think you could run the stack in docker. But if you want to hack it yourself, there's probably easier projects. If you want to spend a bit more but have everything more or less just work with nice hardware and apps, Ubiquity's Unifi system is really great for home security. Not to mention the wifi and other networking solutions they have.

tetris11• 5 months ago

Reolink Doorbell PoE, deny it access to the cloud if you want from the router, works well over LAN and can periodically FTP recordings anywhere you want on your local network, plus it has some really nice HomeAssistant integrations (last movement, last animal, last person, last doorbell)

classic9592• 5 months ago

Oh yes - run Frigate on a mini PC or home server. It runs best in Docker. And it should work with any cameras that support RTSP and provide H.264 video.

I'm not affiliated btw, but I found the instructions really useful - they walk you through an install of Debian 13 (small version of the OS with minimal components), set up low maintenance options (auto updates etc.), install Docker & Frigate, and set up your cameras for best performance depending on your needs.

Keep everything local (if you want). I also integrate with HomeAssistant and expose that through a free CloudFlare Tunnel for access when away from home.

CloudFlare tunnels by the way - these are a great solution to accessing home-network resources without punching holes / port-forwarding etc. because all the access is outward from the home network, then an authentication layer added by CloudFlare.

yabones• 5 months ago

Frigate is very good: https://frigate.video/

Personally, I use Zoneminder: https://zoneminder.com/ Zoneminder is very "janky" but predictable.

I set mine up about three years ago, and it's been nice and boring since: https://nbailey.ca/post/nvr

tamimio2• 5 months ago

I am just happy that the average person is now aware of the usual manipulation tactics, the ad was about “aww doggos!!” and yet no one bought it and back fired.

tuzemec• 5 months ago

In related news, there's a recent scandal in Bulgaria that involves leaked footage from beauty salons and gynecological office appearing on porn sites.

What could go wrong by installing cheap cameras in such places?

https://www.euronews.com/2026/02/04/bulgaria-probes-secret-f...

https://www.ocnal.com/2026/02/bulgaria-launches-criminal-pro...

lifestyleguru5• 5 months ago

Increasingly that's not only some accidents or data leaks. It's organized streaming with platforms and subscriptions.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62rexy9y3no

SwtCyber3• 5 months ago

Home security devices sit in an incredibly sensitive place. If users feel like the scope of data use is drifting beyond what they originally agreed to, that's a big deal

uyzstvqs• 5 months ago

[citation needed]

stevage2• 5 months ago

Yeah, "ring owners are returning their cameras". A few of them. Not enough to make a significant difference.

Kim_Bruning• 5 months ago

Wyze has posted a parody response ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFblZ_-9q4

mobeigi• 5 months ago

The parody is amazing! They were quick to respond and made a great ad at a time a lot of people are moving away from Ring.

assimpleaspossi6• 5 months ago

>Ring camera owners online claim

People online claim all kinds of things.

>This Reddit user is alleging

The story, in part, revolves around one post on Reddit. Isn't this a low effort article? Isn't this just a wild guess by the Redditor posted as fact?

nindalf3• 5 months ago

This news article boils down to "a few people on reddit did something", which is interesting. But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream.

Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not. As long as they're honouring return requests freely, you know that the number of returns is within their accepted levels of distressed inventory. If it's getting into uncomfortable territory, they'll start rate limiting people by saying they're past the return window, or they should try again after a week.

If Amazon's return policy changes, that'll be much more interesting to see. But chances are, people forget about this in a month and their sales are unaffected. This may go the way of #deleteUber, #deleteFacebook and similar boycott campaigns - minor blips at best.

zetanor• 5 months ago

I'd agree on /r/FlockSurveillance/ specifically, but if Reddit itself does not qualify as "mainstream", then what does? Just FANG?

philipallstar4• 5 months ago

Facebook alone is far more mainstream than Reddit, I would say. Thousands of times more.

sigwinch• 5 months ago

It might be that the demographics of Reddit skew toward low economic relevance but high unique views.

friendzis• 5 months ago

Reddit is at the core forum platform, therefore it's as misleading to attribute whatever is happening at any one [group of] subreddit to the whole of Reddit as it is misleading to do the same with closed Facebook groups.

Remember forums of old. Larger sites with daily visitors in the thousands already had nearly isolated topic silos within the forum. The effect is even stronger here.

timmg• 5 months ago

My guess is that it is more: the people that are concerned are posting about it. And those that aren't, aren't.

So you are just seeing a biased subset of the (relatively) mainstream reddit.

ViktorRay• 5 months ago

Reddit is filled with very vocal terminally online people. Their views and actions are not representative of normal human beings.

nindalf3• 5 months ago

You've identified the problem. It's never "reddit", it's a specific subreddit. It really depends on the size of the subreddit. Smaller subreddits can easily get riled up, and also create a sealed echo chamber by banning people left and right. But I wouldn't worry about a sub unless it was really big.

For example: I'd say HBO should worry about what the game of thrones related subs are saying about their latest show (which is good, shoutout) but only as a vibe check. The normies will always outnumber the kind of people who go to a subreddit to discuss their favourite show. Normal people just watch and forget.

Sol-• 5 months ago

That was my immediate reaction as well. These things are never more than a storm in a teapot.

eulers_secret• 5 months ago

It’s interesting how internet backlashes can be large enough to move the needle: ring breaking with flock is evidence of this.

Yet simultaneously the internet represents the opinions of a very small and vocal minority.

I’ve never seen an internet boycott have an impact.

NickDouglas• 5 months ago

You have now. "Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash" is literally on the front of Hacker News.

imperio592• 5 months ago

Bud Light's stock performance last year would like to have a word with you.

buellerbueller• 5 months ago

It’s interesting how internet backlashes can be large enough to move the needle:

Brexit.

barumrho• 5 months ago

While I agree that the return numbers are probably very low, you may be underestimating Reddit's impact in terms of product recommendation. I noticed that Reddit results are often pretty prominent on Google search when product reviews are searched for. Security camera market is pretty competitive and a single factor like this could easily sway people to choose alternatives.

deepsquirrelnet• 5 months ago

I’m not so sure. In terms of total revenue, yes probably insignificant. But in the world of subscriptions and a highly speculative market, I think declining subs can have an outsized impact on share prices.

pimlottc• 5 months ago

Pretty much any time you see a headline like this, you should mentally add the word "Some" to the front of it.

ajam1507• 5 months ago

But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream.

Reddit is one of the most visited websites on the planet, not sure how you can say it isn't mainstream.

Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not.

Depends on your definition of hurting Amazon, but regardless Ring is a tiny portion of Amazon's revenue so even if every single Ring owner returned it wouldn't "hurt Amazon"

This may go the way of #deleteUber, #deleteFacebook and similar boycott campaigns - minor blips at best.

Not sure about Uber, but #deleteFacebook absolutely did have a long term impact in certain demographics.

zzzeek• 5 months ago

I think people should return these cameras, this is good, but, is this really a trend or is MSN just reporting on a reddit sub with a few thousand people? So interesting a company owned by Microsoft would want to publicize people unsatisfied with a competitor...

mosburger2• 5 months ago

I didn't return mine, I just threw it in the trash and replaced it with a local-only no-cloud Eufy. It works great.

Panda4• 5 months ago

So you paid them money and got zero value? how is that better?

josefritzishere• 5 months ago

This is the right thing to do. When you want security, you have to first decide what the threat is. It seems that consumers are discovering that Corporate Surveillance is a threat, and they are right.

ChrisArchitect• 5 months ago

Super Bowl Ad for Ring Cameras Touted AI Surveillance Network

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950915

Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46996999

ProllyInfamous• 5 months ago

I am currently in talks with a neighbor about removing his Ring camera (which points towards my front door / travels)... or at least angling it differently.

anonymousiam• 5 months ago

I had a few Ring doorbells from 2019-2024. I ditched them both because I saw the quality of the video degrade slowly over that time, probably in an effort to reduce cloud storage costs. The reliability of the motion detection also decreased over the same period.

The final straw was when somebody ripped one of the Ring Elite (wired) doorbells off the outside wall. (This was during a Teamsters labor action against Amazon, but I cannot prove any relationship.) There was never a motion alert, and no footage of the culprit was recorded. The final frame had something in it that may have been a person, but it was impossible to be sure.

Having one of my Rings stolen was actually a blessing. I had the police come and take a report, and submitted a claim to Ring. They sent a free replacement, which I promptly listed on eBay, along with the other used one.

So after paying $5/month times two doorbells for five years, I went looking for something better. I settled on Reolink. Everything about them is better. The video quality is far superior, the motion detection is outstanding (and very customizable). Also, the Reolink doorbells cost less than a third of what the Ring Elites cost.

They offer optional cloud storage for about the same price as Ring, but you can also opt for free local storage (using a microSD card in the doorbell). I've got both doorbells set up with 256GB microSD cards, and have them both streaming RTSP to my NAS/NVR, which is something the Ring will never be able to do.

Also, Reolink has made no announcements about partnering with law enforcement, or anyone else. I suppose they might grant access to their cloud, but I doubt they would directly access the microSD cards, and certainly would be unable to access my NVR. I prefer to have some control over my own data, and the Reolink doorbells give me that, while being better and cheaper at what they do.

The one feature the Rings had which was not easily replaceable was smart home integration with motion detection, but I was able to implement that using edgebridge, my NAS/NVR, and some webhooks. My workaround is actually superior to what Ring offered because it's all local, and will continue to function even during an Internet outage.

https://github.com/toddaustin07/edgebridge

https://github.com/toddaustin07/lanmotion

Ring owners are returning their cameras

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