Amazon's Ring Finally Unveils $250 Flying Indoor Drone Camera and Astro-Based Security Robot for Businesses

SEATTLE — Amazon's Ring unveiled a flying indoor security camera and a wheeled patrol robot for businesses on Tuesday. The launch comes more than six years after the company first showed off a home drone that never reached customers.

The $249.99 Ring Drone Cam flies set routes around a home to check spots a fixed camera can't see. The $999.99 Ring Rover Cam is a security robot built for warehouses, stores and offices. Ring is selling both under a new Ring Robotics brand, which it describes as a new category of autonomous security devices that patrol, investigate and respond on their own.

Ring said the Drone Cam will start shipping in the U.S. on Jan. 27, 2027. The company noted in fine print that the drone has not yet been authorized under Federal Communications Commission rules, so its release depends on that approval. The Rover Cam is available for preorder now and ships Dec. 16. Both require a compatible Ring Protect subscription.

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff said the drone is meant for customers who want coverage throughout their homes without putting a camera in every room.

"People like indoor cameras, but they don't necessarily want them everywhere around their home," Siminoff told CNBC.

The Drone Cam flies from room to room to check on suspicious activity and can record at night. Its design has been completely reworked. It has a small rectangular body with four caged rotors, and reviewers compared it to compact consumer drones such as the DJI Neo. Ring says it is lighter than some smartphones. Between flights it docks and recharges on a square base station.

Flight time is short, at about five to eight minutes per charge, according to TechRadar. Navigation is handled by a cloud-based AI pilot rather than onboard hardware. That means the drone needs an internet connection to make its rounds. Siminoff told The Verge that moving navigation to the cloud solved a problem that sank earlier versions: fitting the necessary technology into a practical device that cost less than $250.

Ring also made sure the drone is easy to hear. "It's loud — we think that's a feature. This thing is not gonna sneak up on you," Siminoff told TechRadar.

Ring said privacy is the "default" mode for both the drone and the robot, and that both flash an LED light while recording. The drone works indoors only. Siminoff said Federal Aviation Administration rules restrict flying drones beyond a pilot's line of sight. "We have told our customers not to do that because it's illegal," he said.

The drone will come only in dark gray and only in the U.S. Ring has announced no plans for other markets.

The Rover Cam is a rebranded version of Astro, the home robot Amazon struggled to sell to consumers. Ring said it "leveraged the best of Astro" to build what it calls a "purpose-built security robot." The two-wheeled machine patrols on its own, investigates disturbances, alerts owners when it detects an intruder, and streams video in up to 4K. Ring is aiming it at small and medium-sized businesses and warehouses.

The launch ends a long and uneven development history. Ring first announced the drone in September 2020 as the Always Home Cam and promised it would ship the following year at $249. That version never came out. Siminoff told TechRadar that units had been built for that launch. "They were in boxes and ready to go," he said. Design trade-offs, limited flight time and privacy concerns ultimately stopped it. A second attempt, which Ring was working on as recently as 2025, was also scrapped, Bloomberg reported.

The drone is likely to revive questions about home surveillance that have followed Ring for years. Privacy advocates have criticized the company's camera network and its past arrangements with police departments. A camera that can fly through every room of a house will test how comfortable consumers are with that kind of monitoring.

For Amazon, the products are a fresh push into consumer and commercial robotics, an area where its ambitions have so far outpaced sales. Turning Astro into a business security product gives that hardware a second chance in a market with clearer demand.

The Drone Cam's arrival still depends on FCC approval. If the January date holds, it will be one of the most closely watched home security launches of the new year.