PieFed DKAmazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police
techcrunch.com/2025/10/16/amazons-ring-to-partn…
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Who could have predicted this?
DNSIt’s not shocking, but honestly surprised Amazon came late to the game. Surprise to no one, we already live in a heavy surveillance country. From our phones, to cars, TV’s, computers, to shopping; we are all being watched. Yet, certain people lose their minds because Ring? Give me a kit-kat.
ZomgI do not visit homes with this garbage installed. I’ve got a little blurb written that I give to friends who own one, explaining why they’re a problem and proposing some more privacy respecting alternatives. And before you ask, no, I don’t have a lot of friends left.
You know it’s an opt-in for the owners right? What are you doing anyways that makes you so worried police will catch you anyways?
I have no respect for the ’nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ argument, and I will not be engaging with it. You can simply Google why this is drastically wrong. It’s not worth my energy to explain it.
Right? When people tell me this i ask if they have given their keys to the cops with permission to come look whenever they feel like it
This HAS to be bait
Take 3 seconds to think about why this is a terrible way to think
While we’re getting rid of our rights, let’s just get rid of the entire justice system and democracy because people always do the right thing, especially cops who are never filmed all the time murdering people for their egos being hurt or just flagrant racism.
_AutumnMoon_well given that the police don’t seem to need a reason anymore, literally anything?
Maybe be brown? Seems like an easy way to get in trouble nowadays.
Weird. I’m brown and have brown neighbors. None of us are worried. Maybe you need to touch grass.
the US is literally in the midst of a nazi revival
you’re either not brown or a moron
Brown people are getting disappeared into unmarked vans all over the country but I’m glad you aren’t worried.
dan1101It’s opt-in for now, but not if they don’t get as many options as they want. Also ring cameras often show a lot more than your property they show the street and other neighbors houses as well.
Any recommendations for a replacement?
moseschruteUbiquiti. Their cameras record to a local NVR. If you only need one or two cameras, they have excellent router + NVR combos for a good price that will run circles around your default ISP WiFi router. If you’re interested, I can tell you what my setup looks like, how much it cost, and what I would have done differently.
Please do. I have always been interested in the idea of setting up some cameras, but everything seems to be cloud based and I’m not touching that. If I can write directly to my NAS, that would be ideal.
If you have a NAS setup already, you might be DIY enough to setup something cheaper. Ubiquiti has been nice because it’s self hosted, but without having to do much work yourself. You buy the box that runs the software, the cameras, plug it in, and it just works. You pay a premium for that, but there are no monthly fees.
I have:
- Cloud Gateway Max. This is both the router and the NVR. I bought it for $200 with no bundled SSD. Instead I bought a separate nvme SSD and slotted it into the cloud gateway max.
- U7 Wall Pro. My apartment is small enough that I only need a single WiFi access point. This one supports WiFi 7.
- G4 Doorbell Pro (WiFi addition). Excellent quality, and records directly to the SSD I installed in the cloud gateway max
What I may have done differently.
- I would have considered the Cloud Gateway Fiber instead of the Cloud Gateway Max. The Max doesn’t have any POE outputs, so you need a POE injector to power the U7 Wall Pro. The Cloud Gateway Fiber however has a single POE port out. But I’m not sure that’s worth an extra $70 when you can get a POE injector for cheap.
- If you can run Ethernet to your door, the G4 Doorbell Pro wired will have a more stable connection. Though my WiFi version has been running very well.
If you want more than 2 cameras, or you have a house instead of an apartment, you might want to consider one of their dedicated NVRs, and either multiple U7 Wall Pros, or one of their bigger WiFi access points. You can spend a lot of money on ubiquity quickly, but I don’t think you should write off their entry level equipment because of that. I’m very happy with the \~$700 I spend on my small setup, and that setup will have plenty of headroom for years. And if you buy used or older models I bet you can get a router, access point, and doorbell for under $400. Or incrementally upgrade what you have.
RememberTheApollo_Seconding the ubiquiti comment. Buy used parts on ebay (except the NVR, a somewhat recent update sunsetted the old system) like switches, USG, WAP…buy used if you can. Ubiquiti stuff is well built, at least “prosumer” quality if not better. New stuff is really pricey, and I bought new initially, but recently added on to our network and bought all ebay stuff for 1/3 the price.
I invested in a Reolink NVR and cameras over the summer. They’ve been an improvement over the Nest/Google cameras. Higher resolution, farther night vision, local storage, and I get notifications on my phone faster than I did with the Nest/Google. No annual/monthly fees which is also a bonus.
I’m replacing our ring doorbells with Reolink in the very near future.
Ubiquiti g4 doorbell maybe. It requires investment into the echo system but having its recordings locally stored is what I like about it.
peoplebeproblemsWell, at least my ex was smart enough to listen to me.
Still not smart enough to stay married to me, but good healthy decisions need to be praised for what they were.
Scrambled EggsUnfortunately I recently purchased a couple of ring cameras. Are there any alternatives? One with an app and data base with a similar subscription?
yet another reason for supporting local network only products
Where foes one get local cameras?
Reolink is one for example https://www.reolink.com/gb/ its a HK based (Chinese) company, however they work with local network access only. So they are pretty “safe” to use if you have something like home assistant or something else that can receive their video streams locally. But so far they do not need internet access to function so you can just block their access outside.
They are typically called ‘webcams’.
Then you write or find some open source code to manage things like motion detection, object recognition, permanent vs temporary recording, etc, and run it off your old laptop or a raspberry pi or something.
Unfortunately, that is far beyond most people’s understanding/ability.
Writing it is, but finding an existing project that works isn’t.
I hear https://frigate.video/ is good.
Well then most people get what they pay for.
The problem is that also means the rest of us get centrally surveilled, and those people don’t necessarily have to care
Yep, that is indeed a problem.
Not the kind of problem that can be solved by individual consumer preference choices.
… which was the scope of the original question I was answering.
What you are describing is a massive systemic problem that does not have a simple solution, and arguably, doesn’t have any totally legal solution that would actually work on a long term timeline.
People are too distracted/apathetic, corporations are too powerful, governments are too horny for surveillance.
Mine is covered as above (reolink with frigate, no internet for either) which is pretty secure and privite. And yet I still get wat others pay for !!! (Ring with cloud “service” and amazon analisys.
I very much appreciate your link so that other privacy conscious people like us can at least try in our own lives to not be part of the problem, but uh yeah, yep, societies that don’t constantly, actively and effectively fight against mass surveillance, fight for actual privacy rights… uh yep, they end in the panopticon, and… well its harder to get out of a prison after you’ve already built it and live in it, without something analgous to prison riot.
Fact of the matter is yeah, yeah, most other people paid for this, because they were distracted or busy or didn’t listen to all the warnings people have been giving for decades, or drawn in by the ’neat convenience’ of the tech or whatever.
Its the slow blade that finds its mark, and its quite difficult to un-sever an artery.
What timing for me to find a project called Thingino and set up my own Frigate server specifically to replace my Ring cameras.
We are so fucked.
If only I had a Amazon Ring product ….. I already have 4 axes, a chainsaw and a stick welder …. I’d be having such a good time now /s (and i’m not even in the USA)
You can have mine 😂
Welp, time to start smashing Ring doorbells…