With more than 100 million cameras in the field, Amazon-owned Ring is poised to capitalize on its large footprint by launching a new app store that will expand the capabilities of its cameras. Initially focused on areas such as senior care, workforce analytics, rental management and more, the store will enable developers of all sizes to leverage Ring’s ecosystem to reach customers.
First announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the app store comes alongside Ring’s expansion beyond smart doorbells and cameras for people’s homes in them aimed at businesses. But the new store is also powered by leaps in AI technology, which can take advantage of Ring’s ability to see and hear things in the real world and translate them for users in specific situations.
For example, a startup partner, the company backed by SoftBank Densityhas an app called Routines that focuses on senior care, which can leverage Ring cameras to help families monitor their loved ones, such as their aging parents, and be notified of concerns such as falls or changes in routine.
An application from QueueFlow can help businesses better understand what wait times and congestion are like in any place where people have to wait their turn, such as events, restaurants, service desks, waiting rooms, and more.
An application from Minute can help Airbnb hosts monitor their properties, which ties in with the other camera-less sensors that monitor things like excessive noise and temperature.
The idea, explains Ring founder and CEO Jamie Siminoff, is to expand the possibilities of what Ring cameras can do beyond providing security to homeowners.
“With AI, there’s just an incredible number of long-tail use cases,” he told TechCrunch. “We’re unlocking the value that our customers have invested in, in things that … all of us together never thought we could do.”
However, there will be areas that are limited, given the growing consumer backlash against surveillance technology, which has also affected Ring. After the company rolled out features that could find lost pets or monitor wildfires, customers realized just how much these cameras could do—and how that could lead to a world where people couldn’t go anywhere without being tracked, recorded, and potentially even identified by AI-powered camera systems.
Aware of the potential for similar bad PR with its app store, Siminoff notes that the terms will disallow apps that offer certain types of privacy-infringing features, such as facial recognition tools or license plate readers.
“We’re trying to be careful to make sure it’s used for…apps that provide value to the customer,” he said of the Ring app store. “Certainly, we have to listen to what’s happening in the market and control.”
After customer backlash, Ring canceled its partnership with Flock Safety, a company that makes AI cameras that share video with law enforcement. The partnership would allow agencies using Flock to request video from Ring door and camera owners. The ring itself has a long history sharing data with the policeand has received criticism from privacy advocates in recent months for new partnerships with law enforcement and companies like Axon.
The future of Ring’s app store
Ring’s new app store will be discoverable in the Ring app for iOS and Android devices and will initially be limited to US customers before rolling out more widely. However, adding apps to your Ring setup does not entail using the platform’s in-app purchase payment systems.
That means Ring won’t pay commissions to Apple or Google when customers decide to extend their Ring experience with a partner’s tools.
Siminoff says that’s because Ring isn’t actually distributing the apps — users will still have to download the partner’s app from the app store to access the new feature. Meanwhile, the Ring app itself isn’t changing to incorporate the new partner features.
However, this represents an interesting way to create an app ecosystem that sits outside of the phone’s app stores while still benefiting from Ring’s distribution on iOS and Android.
“It’s not just that Ring is doing an app store. It’s that Ring has a lot of cameras out there, and so it’s a big enough surface that if [developers] write something [they] can get a decent number of customers and hopefully have a successful business,” Siminoff said.
In terms of monetization, when Ring refers a customer to one of its partners, it will receive a commission on those sales. For now, it’s a 10% fee, but Ring says it’s open to apps offering other business models beyond subscriptions, such as one-time fees or even free, ad-supported apps, if that’s something customers really want.
At launch, there are about 15 apps available, but many more are in the works, the company said. Developers can submit their applications for review via Ring’s developer site.
Other apps available now include a bird identification app, WhatsThatBird.AI. a hazard and safety detection application (for fires, smoke, falls, leaks, etc.) memories.ai; a business app that offers notifications and counts people, Lumeo. a lawn health monitor, LawnWatch; enterprise roaming detection, ProxView. a traffic and lane tracking app, StoreTraffic. package delivery tracking by Package Protect. and Amazon’s Cheer Chime app, which chimes when someone tips at the cashier.
“I would say the goal by the end of the year is to have hundreds of apps in dozens of industries,” Siminoff said.
