Amazon's flying indoor security cam is cheaper than expected, US-only at first, needs Wi-Fi to think, and flies for minutes rather than hours.
Ring's long-promised indoor security drone finally has a price and a date. The Ring Drone Cam costs $249.99 and is scheduled to ship on January 27, 2027, in the US only. Preorders weren't open on launch day.
The palm-sized drone sits on a dock and flies itself to check a room when a Ring sensor trips, on a set patrol schedule or when you ask. It streams 2K video to your phone, but it can't be flown by hand.
Ring also opened preorders for the $999.99 Rover Cam, a wheeled security robot for businesses that ships December 16. No UK or Canadian pricing has been announced for either device.
The Ring drone camera price is $249.99, and the company says the flying indoor camera will ship on January 27, 2027. That is a fraction of what this kind of gadget was expected to cost, and Ring founder Jamie Siminoff says an earlier design would likely have gone past $5,000 at retail.
If you have been waiting since Ring first showed a home drone back in 2020, this is the first version the company says will actually reach buyers. It is pitched as one camera that can check any room instead of several fixed ones. But the price comes with trade-offs: short flights, a total reliance on your internet connection and, at launch, US-only sales.
Ring has set the Drone Cam at $249.99 with a ship date of January 27, 2027. As of launch day it was not yet open for preorder on Amazon, though you can sign up there for email updates, and Ring staff said preorders would open soon.
That price covers the drone and its dock. Ring hasn’t announced bundles or a price for spare parts, and it gave no word on repairs beyond telling owners of a damaged unit not to fly it and to contact support.
The final production unit will be black, not the white model seen in launch photos.
It is a small quadcopter that lives on a charging dock and takes off when something needs checking. A tripped Ring motion, door or window sensor, a water leak alert or an alarm can send it flying to that spot, where it streams live video to the Ring app and records the trip.
You can also set it to run patrols on a schedule or launch a flight whenever you like. What you can’t do is steer it like a hobby drone. Instead you set routes and patrol points, and the drone plans its own path.
Setup works by carrying the drone around your home. It recognizes rooms and suggests places worth watching, like doors and windows, and you can add more. It also ties into the new Alexa Home Map, a 3D view of your home Amazon showed off in October, so you can tap a point on the map and let the drone work out how to get there.
The hardware is tiny. It weighs 165 grams (5.8 ounces) and records 2K video with a 148-degree field of view, and because it moves, it can turn to see a full 360 degrees. There is a second camera underneath, and Ring reps say it can cover a home of up to 3,500 square feet.
Ring’s figure is five to eight minutes per flight, with one launch report quoting eight to 10 minutes depending on how high the drone flies. Either way, this is a quick check-in tool, not an all-night guard.
Charging is the bigger limit. Ring says each minute in the air needs about eight minutes on the dock, and a full recharge takes around an hour. So a long patrol leaves the drone grounded for a while afterward.
In launch demos, a single one-minute flight was enough to cover two medium-sized rooms before the drone docked itself again.
The short answer is the cloud. Siminoff says Ring has worked on an indoor drone since 2016, and two earlier versions came close to launch. The first was announced in 2021 and boxed up, but never shipped because it “just didn’t work well enough,” he said. Another was pulled in 2025.
The problem was a loop he described in detail. Every fix for a tricky home situation added sensors and processing, which needed more power and a bigger battery. Extra weight meant faster rotors, which meant more safety shrouding, which hurt how well the drone flew.
About a year ago the team started over with a simpler drone and moved its brains to Ring’s servers. A system Ring calls AI Pilot takes the camera feed, runs it through vision models and sends back directions, so it can map the home and steer around obstacles. That made the drone light and cheap enough for a $249.99 price.
The catch is obvious for a security product. If your Wi-Fi drops, the drone can’t think. Ring says it will simply land or return to its dock when the connection fails or the battery runs low.
For most buyers, the question is less about flight time and more about having a flying camera inside the house. Ring says privacy is the default here. The camera is shuttered and switched off while docked and only records when a flight is triggered.
It is also loud on purpose. Siminoff says the buzz, plus its moving spotlights, should scare off intruders and make it impossible for anyone to snoop quietly from afar. Hands-on testers described the noise as hard to miss, and pets may not love it either.
Video is protected by what Ring calls TAKE (Throw Away the Key Encryption). In plain terms, Ring swaps the encryption keys every five minutes and deletes its own copies after 24 hours. Ring does hold the key briefly so its cloud AI features can work, which means this is not the same as true end-to-end encryption, where only you can ever see the footage. Every Ring account requires two-factor login.
Ring’s history matters too. The company has faced an FTC settlement over staff viewing customer footage, and critics have long questioned its work with police. An Electronic Frontier Foundation activist says anyone considering the drone should think about how it would feel for family members and guests.
On the legal side, the drone is well under the 250-gram limit, and because it only flies indoors it doesn’t need registering with the Federal Aviation Administration. Ring says it is assembled in Texas and complies with US rules on foreign-made drones, though it was still going through FCC certification at launch.
Ring also launched the Rover Cam, a wheeled security robot built on the hardware of Amazon’s Astro. It costs $999.99, is available to preorder now and ships December 16, a few weeks before the drone.
The Rover is aimed at small and medium businesses rather than homes. It records 4K video, has a camera on a periscope that rises up to 4 feet, two-way audio and a siren. Amazon’s earlier business version of Astro cost $2,350 and was dropped in 2024.
The Ring Drone Cam costs $249.99 in the US. You will also need a Ring Protect plan to save video and use the advanced features.
Ring says it ships January 27, 2027. Preorders were not open on launch day, but Ring says they are coming soon.
Not yet. It launches in the US only, and Ring has not given a UK or Canadian price or date.
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