You can Ring my bell: Amazon pays ONE BEEEEELLION+ dollars for smart home upstart

Great! - More 'Stasi Tech'

"Nest announced it was incorporating Google Assistant into its products – meaning that its products will seamlessly work with Google Home"

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/opening-our-digital-door-to-welcome-in-tech-stasi-police-1.3155208

Netatmo?

That was enough for Amazon to realize it needed to move fast on smart cameras, smart doorbells and smart security systems. And there was only one company doing it all that was available to buy: Ring.

What about Netatmo?

'...the Jeff-Bezos-run web bazaar is indeed sliding Ring onto its finger.' Surely 'sliding its finger into Ring'?

all in

Soon to be your landlord and the company store.

All the while you keep paying for tax breaks your dumb-witted local government promised them to setup a sweatshops and some office space in your region.

Congrats to the Ring team

I wouldn't buy your product before and still won’t, but to those people who started the thing...congrats on the exit. Take the money and get out...Amazon is a sh*thole.

Once you’re lucky...Twice you’re good.

What about the purchase of Blink by Amazon some months ago, you missed that one.

Its Wi-Fi doorbell battery degraded pretty fast

I've recently purchased a neat little wireless doorbell that generates enough energy from pressing the bellpush to send the activation signal to the chime. I would have preferred one of these but it wouldn't easily fit on a glazed door.

Perhaps the answer is to fit the doorbell with a little handle you have to turn to ring the bell - much like an old telephone magneto. Oh, and not use WiFi.

"As for Apple and its HomeKit. Still only for fanbois, we're afraid."

Apart from Nest, most devices (I am aware of) have HomeKit support or will soon have HomeKit support (without needing Homebridge, etc) - Ring included:

https://twitter.com/ring/status/968592090098671616

Suddenly you ask your Google Home or Amazon Echo

google what and amazon what?

No thanks

If you've ever held one of these things in your hand, you'll realise that it's a bit on the cheap side. Nest doorbell looks much better.

I just bought a smart doorbell

There's a little button next to the door, and if someone presses it it notifies me that there's someone outside by making a loud noise. If I'm not at home, I let them know by not answering the door. This seems to be about the limit of how smart a doorbell needs to be.

Who has he been blowing?

Wow who was he blowing - when it all went horrendously wrong last year I got an email from the Ring CEO saying it wasn't working because AWS was down which was bollocks.

I never did get a response to my email saying I was an AWS certified SA and could I help them with their autoscaling policies.

Even funnier was when a Ring support staffer posted on Reddit with her secondary account which revealed she was a squirter!

Hopefully now they're under Amazon control they'll actually get this thing working as it was sold - my Ring Pro has been a buggy mess with Android since I bought it back in October.

Don't see the value in spending that amount on Ring, The tech isn't that innovative its just a wireless webcam which connects to an app on a phone. I am sure Amazon could have knocked up their own 'Fire bell' version for considerably less money.

Overseas expansion

I think the bit people are missing is that Ring is a fantastic name if you want to expand into non-English-speaking countries. Onomatopoeia at its best. Nest doesn't translate at all well, by comparison.

Amazon are not just buying tech; they're buying what should be the go-to brand name in this space.