Ring showed up at CES with more than a camera tweak — Amazon is recasting the humble doorbell as the hub of a wider home-safety network. The company unveiled a new family of Ring Sensors that lean on Amazon’s Sidewalk low-power mesh instead of Wi‑Fi or a Z‑Wave hub, launched a Ring Appstore inside the Ring app, and rolled out a neighborhood-focused wildfire feature powered by a partnership with nonprofit Watch Duty.
What’s new
Ring Sensors is the headline: an updated lineup that includes indoor and outdoor contact sensors, motion detectors, glass-break sensors, a smoke and CO alarm listener, flood and freeze detectors, temperature and humidity monitors, an air-quality sensor, panic buttons, and smart plugs and switches. There’s also a new OBD‑II Ring Car Alarm with GPS for tracking vehicles.Amazon says the sensors can detect motion, openings, glass breakage, leaks and changing air quality, and they can be used to control lighting and appliances on your network. Most of the new products will be available in March, with the car alarm up for pre-order immediately.
Sidewalk: the network behind it all
Instead of requiring Wi‑Fi or a separate hub, these devices connect over Sidewalk — Amazon’s long-range, low-power IoT protocol that stitches together Bluetooth Low Energy, LoRa and a 900 MHz radio. Echo speakers, certain Ring cameras and other Sidewalk-capable kit act as gateways, passing tiny messages to the cloud. The trade-off: devices use far less power and can reach across greater distances, but they rely on a community-style mesh that shares a sliver of neighbors’ internet bandwidth.Ring says Sidewalk-enabled sensors will work without a Ring Alarm hub (though they remain backward compatible with the Z‑Wave-based Ring Alarm system for existing users). The move effectively expands Ring’s hardware footprint while lowering the friction for people who don’t want to buy and set up another hub.
If you follow the broader smart-home conversation, this is another nudge toward simplified connectivity — similar in spirit to IKEA’s big Matter push that aims to make devices play nicer across ecosystems. At the same time, hobbyist projects that revive older smart thermostats show how much users value long-lived, more interoperable appliances, even when official cloud support dries up revive-old-nest-thermostats.
Smarter alerts, apps and Live Neighborhood reporting
Ring is layering more AI into its cameras and alerts. “AI Unusual Event Alerts” are designed to learn a property’s normal patterns and flag anomalies — for example, an unfamiliar person loitering in a spot where nobody usually stands. “Active Warnings” use computer vision to call out potential threats with details such as location, actions and clothing. For businesses or subscribers to Amazon’s Virtual Security Guard service, some warnings can automatically trigger intervention.On the software side, Amazon is adding a Ring Appstore inside the Ring app (initially U.S.-only). Ring says the storefront will host third-party apps focused on small-business operations and everyday home use, enabling camera feeds to integrate directly with specialized services.
Ring also pointed to a civic-safety angle: in regions prone to wildfires, the company partnered with Watch Duty to add a Fire Watch feature to the Neighbors section of the Ring app. Users can share live camera footage and real-time updates to the Watch Duty wildfire map, helping neighbors and first responders get more localized information about smoke and active fires. With fires growing more frequent and intense in many drought-affected areas, that local visibility can be valuable — though it also raises questions about how camera footage is shared and used.
Why this matters — and what to watch for
Technically, the announcements are a logical expansion: make sensors cheaper to install, extend connectivity via Sidewalk and try to pull more value from video through apps and AI. For users, the promise is easier setup and broader coverage without another hub. For neighborhoods, the Watch Duty tie-in offers a new path to real-time situational awareness.But Sidewalk remains controversial to privacy-minded users because it routes small amounts of data through neighbor devices. Ring’s approach reduces friction, but it also relies on a community mesh that some people may distrust. The AI-driven alerts could cut down on false alarms if tuned well, yet any system that learns from home patterns invites scrutiny about what data is stored and who sees it.
If you’re thinking of upgrading: the sensors come in March, the Car Alarm is available to pre-order, and the app marketplace will roll out in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Expect to see Sidewalk devices show up where homeowners want low-maintenance monitors — basements, sheds, garages and rental properties where Wi‑Fi is spotty.
Ring’s CES package is an attempt to widen its platform: hardware that travels farther, software that plugs in third parties, and civic features that tie private cameras into public safety. It’s an ecosystem play — and like all ecosystem plays, its success will depend on how well Amazon balances convenience with transparency and control.