is a senior reviewer focused on smart home and connected tech, with over twenty years of experience. She has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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Jamie Siminoff has returned to Ring, the company he founded, with a renewed focus on its mission statement to “Make neighborhoods safer.” Talking to The Verge ahead of the release of his new book Ding Dong, Siminoff says he believes the new wave of AI could finally help him fulfill that vision.
Ding Dong will be released on November 10th in e-book, softcover, hardcover, and audiobook formats. Image: Ding Dong
“When I left, I felt like Ring had gotten to a place where it was linear innovation,” he says. But new features like Search Party, an AI-powered tool that can search your neighbors’ Ring camera footage for lost dogs, are the type of innovations he always dreamt of but couldn’t execute. “Now, with AI, we can,” he says.
While research suggests that today’s video doorbells do little to prevent crime, Siminoff believes that with enough cameras and with AI, Ring could eliminate most of it. Not all crime — “you’ll never stop crime a hundred percent ... there’s crimes that are impossible to stop,” he concedes — but close.
“I think that in most normal, average neighborhoods, with the right amount of technology — not too crazy — and with AI, that we can get very close to zero out crime. Get much closer to the mission than I ever thought,” he says. “By the way, I don’t think it’s 10 years away. That’s in 12 to 24 months … maybe even within a year.”
Siminoff brushes off the controversy surrounding the tool. “I believe very deeply that we have a world where you can have technology make you more secure while also keeping your privacy in your control. I think that the two can coexist,” he says. “When you look at these quote controversies, what’s sad about it is it’s just misinformation. They’re not controversies. Police asking people anonymously for their video … is not a controversy,” he says.
Privacy advocates and civil rights groups strongly disagree, citing concerns around both privacy and the creation of a private surveillance network.
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