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When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos promised in 2013 that drones would soon be flying everywhere delivering packages, a miniature camera zooming through houses and recording video was probably not what people imagined.
But on Thursday, Amazon’s Ring division unveiled the $ 249 Ring Always Home Cam, a small drone that hums as it flies through houses filming everything, ostensibly for security purposes.
Amazon also introduced new Echo devices, a cloud gaming service called Luna, and other products. But the home security drone stood out. The company’s promotional video featuring the camera showed a burglar breaking into a house and scared when the drone flew straight at him: “Oh no!” he exclaimed, as the owner watched the encounter on his phone.
“Oh yes,” the ad proclaimed.
The reaction to the surveillance drone was energetic, but not in the way Amazon would have expected.
“In a country without laws regulating digital privacy, anyone buying this from a company with a history of privacy problems is insane,” tweeted Walt Mossberg, a longtime technology product critic who is on the board of the nonprofit News Literacy Project.
Ring said the drone could be used to check if an owner had left the stove on or a window open, and promised it would record only while flying. He would also make a buzz to make it clear when he was filming. But privacy remained the top concern for most astonished Twitter users.
“An Internet-connected drone camera for your home, owned by Amazon. this will definitely not be a privacy nightmare * at all *, ”one person tweeted.
“A scary step in the future of technology?” posted another Twitter user, Khoa Phan. “Like it’s cool but always disturbing at the same time. Obviously, there are some privacy concerns with Amazon. But what is the next step after this if this is just the beginning ?! “
A disclaimer at the bottom of Ring’s blog post announcing that the drone stated that the device had not been licensed by the Federal Communications Commission and that it may never be. Ring said the drone would be available next year, but not “until clearance is obtained.”
As for Bezos’s plan to have drones deliver packages? In 2013, he said it could happen in about five years. To date, it has not.
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