After deploying states late last year, Ring’s AI-powered smart video search finally reached the UK.
As the name suggests, Smart Video Search allows you to find specific moments in your event history without infinite scrolling.
Instead of scrubbing footage for a few hours, instead of checking when the package arrived or knowing who left the car door open, you can enter simple search terms in the ring app and get it directly into the action.
Smart Video Search features Ring IQ, the term Amazon-owned brand umbrella for AIA and machine learning efforts. This uses Visual Language Modeling (VLM) to match related video clips with text-based queries.
This means you can search for things like “Driveway Cats” or “Kitchen Kids” and quickly present clips that match what you’re looking for.
The ring shows that the technology recognizes a wide range of search terms, including animals, people, vehicles, weather, packaging, time-related events, and even activities such as jumping and running.
Just like AI-powered features, especially those owned by Big Tech, there are privacy and security concerns.
Ring says he incorporated “sophisticated input moderation” into his system to prevent searching for inappropriate or harmful content, but he doesn’t see exactly how it actually works.
The company also touts its commitment to “responsible AI,” which is always an emotional goal when it comes to home security and surveillance technology.
Smart Video Search is rolled out in public beta for UK customers with Ringhome Premium subscriptions that cost £15.99 a month or £159.99 a year.
It works with all ring video doorbells and cameras, so if you are already in the ring ecosystem and are paying for a premium plan, you should make sure this feature appears immediately.
