The idea of using a drone to keep your home safe may sound cool - but do the advantages outweigh all the disadvantages?
This week, Amazon 's smart home company Ring announced the Always Home Cam, a "next-level home security" small autonomous drone. It will cost $ 250 and will integrate with the rest of Ring's home security hardware and software. Technologically, this is impressive, but you almost certainly won't need it.
I honestly don’t understand why this fake thief was more worried about the presence of the Ring drone than if he saw cameras in the house. A drone cannot do anything, but you can simply knock it down with a blow. Well, it's still an advertisement for a product launch.
Ring has not provided details about the drone yet, but we can figure out something ourselves. I think there is a planar lidar on top of the drone, which it uses for orientation, and also on the bottom there is a downward facing camera. Ring says that the application will need to pre-mark the areas where the drone should fly, and this is a working approach, since your house for the most part does not change. It's also nice that you don't have to worry about the weather, and the minimum battery life doesn't really matter because you don't have to fly very far and the recharge dock is always nearby. I like that the user can only direct the drone to certain points along the way, and he does not need to control the drone directly - depending on how the drone behaves in the air, this can help to avoid accidents.Ring also writes that the drone is "designed with privacy in mind, so its motors hum during flight" - a ridiculous statement, since the motors already hum during flight, this is a drone.
Is this a realistic product? Yes, I see no problem. Apparently, he will cope with the announced tasks, taking into account some not yet disclosed restrictions. Good idea, but should you buy this product? I personally would not recommend it. My skepticism is based on several factors. The first question for a consumer robot that should be useful is whether it simply makes things in a more fashionable and funnier way that can be made easier, more reliable, and cheaper using more common systems. In this case, we can compare this drone with a network of indoor surveillance cameras.
Today you can buy a decent security camera for as little as $ 25, and connecting and configuring them is usually a simple task. Therefore, for the price of one drone from Ring, you can buy a dozen cameras. The cameras are static (although you can pay extra and get moving), which means that the drone can view a larger percentage of the house than cameras. The real question to ask, though, is: Can multiple cameras cover all the parts of your home that matter to you? In my (admittedly small) apartment, one static chamber covers most of the living room, the front door, and the stairs leading to the office. One of my cameras cannot immediately look into the kitchen, bedroom or office as the Ring drone could do, but if I really wanted to track these premises, I would buy three more cameras, and I would still have $ 150 left. Sure,there would be some corners where the drone can look better, but I can't imagine why I would urgently need to look into them remotely.
For larger homes, the scale will be different, and at some point in the cost of cameras you may be on a par with a drone. However, I would argue that from a safety point of view (and this drone, apparently, is only needed for safety), the drone is not nearly as useful as static cameras. Cameras provide continuous surveillance, the drone only provides a jet. If the camera detects movement, it can immediately let you know and send you footage of this event, as well as footage taken shortly before and after it happened. The drone is not that efficient at all - it has to launch, fly to its destination, it has to recharge, and it can only be in one place at a time.
The second important question to ask about any robot, especially one with a camera, is whether the advantages of this system outweigh its disadvantages. Next, we'll look at the reasons why an autonomous security camera connected to the internet is a privacy nightmare. But first, it is necessary to point out the possibly significant advantage of the Ring drone over the usual static cameras in the area of privacy. With a drone, you always know when and where it is recording - as it makes noise and gets in the way. Most static cameras are usually on all the time, and it is difficult to be sure that what they see remains confidential. Unless the drone flies or makes noise, it can hardly be used to spy on you without your knowledge.And if you would not like to install a permanent camera, for example, in the bedroom, but would like to be able to look after it while away, then such a mobile system would give you such an opportunity - the main thing is not to forget to leave the bedroom door open.
But this potential privacy advantage carries with it potential risks, says Ryan Kahlo., associate professor at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. “Fixed cameras can be avoided, but mobile ones cannot, so a child, spouse or neighbor may not be able to get rid of such a camera,” he explains. This is not a feature of only one drone from Ring - however, one way or another, Ring is one of the first to offer a special mobile surveillance robot. “If mobile surveillance becomes the norm,” he adds, “it worries me that this technology will make it easier for intruders to spy on their partner anywhere, eliminate camera blind spots and discount the excuse that the one being watched just isn't. hit the cameras. In other words, Ring offers the ability to spy without restrictions. But peeping, as you know, is part of domestic violence. "
In a way, Ring's drone is like a remote presence robot - someone can enter your personal space anywhere, at a level of physical activity unique to robots. The potential for harassment in this case is much higher than that of systems that can see but not move. You can get rid of the drone by covering it with a blanket or something else, or just closing the door - but you shouldn't get into this situation in your own home.
Ring and its parent company Amazon also lack extensive security and privacy expertise. At the same time, your data can get not only to hackers - Ring especially emphasized its close ties with law enforcement agencies. As written in the July EFF article"With a warrant, the police can bypass the owner of the device and get the records straight from Amazon, even if the owner doesn't want to." The article talks about recordings from a video call from Ring, but it is not clear why the Ring drone can be an exception to these rules.
The drone can also give Amazon even more opportunities to collect data about its owner - but now from a mobile platform that can fly around the house and even look out of windows. “He's helping Amazon create your digital twin,” says Julie Carpenter, an ethics and emerging science researcher at California Polytechnic State University. “They use this kind of user data to create digital versions of them in databases and then use them to sell different products to them. Collected data increasingly violates user privacy, and with the capabilities of a drone from Ring, such methods of collecting as building a plan of your house, recording the behavior of the owner and his family members on audio and video in bedrooms, bathrooms - wherever you live ”.
By allowing internet-connected security cameras into your home, you are already risking privacy. Many people feel that this risk is worth the security and peace of mind they receive. However, if you examine the advantages of a Ring drone over security cameras, the additional privacy risks posed by an autonomous mobile camera are difficult to justify. The technology is impressive, of course, and the idea for a standalone home drone is pretty cool. But is it worth the $ 250, is the incomprehensible increase in security over static cameras and the apparent increase in the potential for misuse worth it? Something I'm not sure.