Ring owners are getting a huge AI upgrade

If you have a Ring video doorbell or camera, you can now upgrade it to give it special AI powers.

According to the Ring blog, Smart Video Search is available as a public beta from today.

Ring isn't the only firm doing this: in August, Google demonstrated the use of its Gemini system to enable more voice queries in its smart home devices. But the Ring feature is available for people to use now.

There is a catch, however. From 5 November, Smart Video Search will be a subscriber-only option as part of "a revamped subscription service called Ring Home... along with other new features like 24/7 recording". That service will be $19.99 per month in the US.

Launch dates and prices for other countries haven't yet been announced.

How AI will improve Ring's video search

Smart Video Search is designed to remove the biggest pain about reviewing video footage: scrolling through it. The search is powered by a system called Ring IQ – "a combination of Ring AI technology and in-house expertise" – and uses Visual Language Modelling to understand what's in the images.

That understanding means you'll then be able to ask for specific things and have the AI take you to the appropriate point in your video.

According to Ring, you'll be able to use plain-language questions such as "when did the kids get home from school?" or search criteria such as "red bicycle in the driveway" or "racoon in the back yard last night".

The public beta, which is rolling out to everyone from today, will enable you "to search queries related to animals, locations, packages, people, time, vehicles, weather, and even some activities, like jumping, running, playing, or riding".

There will be some limits, however. Ring says that it wants smart video search to be "responsible", so it'll prevent searching for "offensive, inappropriate or harmful content". That presumably applies more to footage from indoor cameras than to video doorbells unless you live somewhere much more exciting than I do.