Amazon’s Ring announced a new feature at CES this week designed to help communities get real-time information during active fire events.
Ring’s Fire Watch turns doorbell cameras into wildfire detectors
The feature uses AI detection and opt-in camera sharing to provide real-time fire information during active fires.
The feature uses AI detection and opt-in camera sharing to provide real-time fire information during active fires.
is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
Ring Fire Watch allows Ring camera owners to opt in to share snapshots from their cameras during a wildfire with Watch Duty, a nonprofit organization that shares real-time fire information with the community and authorities via its app.
Fire Watch is built into Ring’s Neighbors app and has three features:
- Real-time fire alerts from Watch Duty: When Watch Duty identifies a fire, the Neighbors or Ring app will send an alert.
- AI-powered smoke and fire detection: During a fire event, outdoor Ring cameras will automatically start analyzing for signs of smoke or flames and trigger an alert when they detect them (requires a Ring Protect subscription).
- Voluntary community contribution: During an active wildfire, Ring owners in the alert zone can opt in to share snapshots from their cameras through the Ring app.
Combined, these are designed to deliver early warnings about how a fire is moving through the community.
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff has personal experience with wildfire damage; the garage where he started Ring was destroyed in the Palisades fire last year. “I believe that with better info we can have better outcomes,” he says. “There were over 10,000 Ring cameras in the fire zone, but authorities only had access to traffic cameras and similar — more macro coverage. With Ring, we can provide micro coverage at a neighborhood, street, and house level.”
Siminoff, who has said that AI-powered security cameras have the potential to almost zero out crime in communities, hopes Fire Watch will help slow the spread of fast-moving wildfires. “By identifying spot fires before they spread and giving emergency services better data, they can deploy resources in a more efficient way,” he says.
Fire Watch will be available this spring.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
