# Amazon Ring

11 Hacker News commenters recommended Amazon Ring and 35 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Amazon's Ring camera line is recommended as a working home camera, but critics object that it enables neighborhood surveillance and police access to footage.

## Why people recommend it

- Works reliably for owners (2 comments): "Ring works fine, I don't share the footage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47002515)) "Ring still works for some reason" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48323659))

## What people warn about

- Enables neighborhood surveillance and police access (6 comments): "I thought Ring was already sending data to law enforcement agencies (that paid Amazon for it)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46981731)) "Flock and Ring are awful because they enable easy surveillance and search after the fact" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690371)) "Total neighbourhood surveillance for the benefit of the 0.03% is way out of proportion." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46986362))
- Seen as unreliable and getting worse (3 comments): "Ring maintenance seems hostile to use outside of expected use cases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48135205)) "Ring has been a problem and it has only gotten worse now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46982123)) "ring is explicitly an experiment, not suitable for use" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48123929))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Reolink doorbell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/reolink-doorbell.md): 15 recommend
- [Ring doorbell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ring-doorbell.md): 14 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Ring+Video+Doorbell&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://ring.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Amazon Ring", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ring/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).