Summary
Do you love your Ring doorbell and outdoor security cameras but wish the notifications or alerts were better? The latest update makes it so that your Ring camera can actually tell you what’s happening outside instead of only saying, “motion detected in the driveway.”
Ring just announced a new feature called Video Descriptions, which is AI-powered and will generate extremely useful text descriptions for what your camera captures. So, instead of getting an alert to activity in the driveway at 2 AM that makes you panic, only to realize it’s a cat wandering around at night, you’ll get something like “Driveway: A black cat is walking in the yard.”
As you can imagine, this is a small but extremely welcome change. These new descriptive notifications make it easy to see andknowwhat’s happening, while the older style would demand immediate action and have you concerned that someone could be breaking into your vehicle.
Ring’s new Video Descriptions will give you smart, real-time details about the happenings in and around your home. The company shared an example where a living room camera alerts you to movement, which isn’t all that helpful. Then, with descriptive alerts, you’ll see something more like, “A dog is tearing up paper towels on the rug.”
According to Ring, these new alerts have been fine-tuned to relay only vital and helpful information. The AI is trained to recognize and describe the main focus of the situation rather than simply being descriptive about the overall scene. Basically, it’ll avoid pointless things like a tree blowing in the wind, but it will let you know that a person is detected, and you may want to take action. This will save users precious time opening up the app and waiting for a video to load and play.
When you get a Ring camera notification on your phone, these new descriptive alerts will appear right inside the notification next to the preview. you’re able to quickly glance at it and continue on with your day, or watch the video and decide what course of action to take.
Ring’s all-new Video Descriptions are available to beta testers starting today, June 25th, for those with a Ring Home Premium subscription in the United States and Canada. According to the company, it works on all currently available Ring doorbells and cameras. Unfortunately, we’re unsure when this will exit the beta and be available for everyone, or when it’ll roll out to more regions.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m stoked about this new feature and can’t wait to try it. Video Descriptions joinseveral other Ring camera featuresthat have arrived over the last year or two. So, if you haven’t tried one in a while, it might be worth snagging a new camera duringPrime Day in July.
