Amazon Ring doorbells now scan faces at your door

Amazon is giving its Ring devices a major AI upgrade — and it’s about to change what your security camera and doorbell can do. The company’s latest innovation introduces facial recognition to identify familiar visitors right at your doorstep, making home security feel even smarter. But that’s not all — Ring is also rolling out a new feature designed to help bring lost dogs back to their owners. Here’s a closer look at how Amazon is blending AI with everyday life through its latest Ring innovations.

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Ring unleashes AI-tuned ‘Retinal Vision’ for lifelike surveillance

Ring is redefining home surveillance with the introduction of Retinal Vision, its next-generation imaging technology arriving in both 4K and 2K resolutions across an expanded lineup of smart cameras and doorbells. This breakthrough advances beyond simple high-definition recording, focusing instead on optimizing the entire image-capture process through advanced AI tuning to deliver video that more closely resembles what the human eye naturally perceives.

The flagship offering, Ring Retinal 4K Vision, is being deployed in the company’s most advanced devices, including the Wired Doorbell Pro, Spotlight Cam Pro, Floodlight Cam Pro, and Outdoor Cam Pro. For installations requiring a wired network, Ring is also launching Power over Ethernet (PoE) versions, such as the Spotlight Cam Pro PoE and Outdoor Cam Pro PoE, alongside the Wired Doorbell Elite. This first-ever 4K lineup for Ring promises to set a new standard for clarity and intelligence. With features like 10x zoom and enhanced low-light performance, these devices are designed to reveal critical details with lifelike precision, even in the most challenging conditions. Ring states that this crisper foundation will unlock a new level of intelligence, making every subsequent AI-powered feature more effective and reliable.

For its mid-range devices, Ring is introducing Retinal 2K Vision in two all-new products: the Indoor Cam Plus and Wired Doorbell Plus. Retinal 2K focuses on maximizing every pixel to provide greater clarity and pixel density. The result is a true-to-life video that offers a consistently clear, reliable view of your doorstep.

‘Alexa+ Greetings’ and ‘Familiar Faces’ make Ring devices more personal

Ring is elevating the intelligence of its security ecosystem by introducing two major AI-powered features designed to make home monitoring smarter, more proactive, and less noisy. These features, Alexa+ Greetings and Familiar Faces, are set to launch in December, leveraging the improved visual clarity of Ring’s new camera lineup to unlock advanced capabilities.

Alexa+ Greetings: Your personal doorbell concierge

With Alexa+ Greetings, the AI assistant transforms into a smart doorbell attendant, actively engaging with visitors so you don’t have to. When a solicitor or delivery driver approaches, Alexa+ can automatically manage the interaction, asking the purpose of the visit, providing instructions for deliveries, and keeping you fully informed without requiring you to stop what you’re doing. This feature essentially allows Alexa to screen and handle routine front-door interactions on your behalf.

Familiar Faces ensures personalized, quieter notifications

The new, optional Familiar Faces feature uses facial recognition technology to enhance your Ring experience. By allowing users to tag and enroll photos of family, friends, and neighbors in the Ring app, the system can intelligently recognize these individuals. This recognition dramatically improves notifications and video events by:

Reducing Noise: The system helps cut down on unnecessary alerts triggered by the routine activities of people you know, ensuring your phone only buzzes for important events.
Adding Context: Recognized people are identified by name (or tag) in alerts, video events, and the timeline, eliminating guesswork and making it effortless to find and review moments involving specific individuals.

As with all biometric technology, Ring stresses that Familiar Faces is an opt-in feature and is not turned on by default. Due to strict state and local laws regarding biometric data (like in parts of Illinois, Texas, and Portland), the feature will not be available in all geographic areas. Users should also be mindful that while the feature adds convenience, it introduces the usual concerns around data handling, security, and gaining consent from those who appear on camera.

Ring devices turn into a pet rescue network with ‘Search Party’

Ring is leveraging its expansive network and advanced artificial intelligence for a community-focused initiative: Search Party. This new AI-powered feature is designed to transform outdoor Ring cameras into simple, cooperative tools that help neighbors quickly reunite lost dogs with their worried families. Given that the Ring Neighbors app saw over a million posts regarding lost or found pets last year, this feature aims to significantly streamline the search process.

When a neighbor reports a lost dog within the Ring app, the system alerts nearby outdoor Ring cameras, which automatically begin scanning their footage for potential matches. Using AI, these cameras look for dogs that resemble the one reported missing and then alert the respective camera owner if a possible match is found.

Crucially, privacy remains in the control of the camera owner. The Ring app displays the missing dog’s photo alongside the relevant camera footage. The camera owner can then choose to ignore the alert or easily share the footage directly with the neighbor who reported the pet missing.

Search Party reflects Ring’s vision of using AI not just for individual security, but to foster safer, more connected communities where neighbors can easily look out for one another. The feature for dogs is scheduled to begin rolling out in November, with support for cats and other pets planned to follow.

Next-gen Ring devices are now available for pre-order

Ring’s entire new lineup featuring Retinal Vision 4K and 2K is available for pre-order starting today. The new devices span a wide range of price points, from entry-level indoor cameras to premium wired doorbell models, including Power over Ethernet (PoE) options for advanced installations. All models can be pre-ordered now directly from Amazon and Ring’s official website.

The new devices and their starting prices are as follows: