Amazon Ring
Ranked 3 of 3 video doorbells by recommenders
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.
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.
46 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 35
- approval share
- 24%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works reliably for owners
“Ring works fine, I don't share the footage”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance” “Ring still works for some reason”
Comment from 29 May 2026 in “Volkswagen blocks Home Assistant by requiring client assertion”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Enables neighborhood surveillance and police access
“I thought Ring was already sending data to law enforcement agencies (that paid Amazon for it).”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance” “Flock and Ring are awful because they enable easy surveillance and search after the fact”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology” “Total neighbourhood surveillance for the benefit of the 0.03% is way out of proportion.”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance” - Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “Dissecting Flock Safety: The Cameras Tracking You Are a Security Nightmare [video]”
- Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance”
- Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance”
Seen as unreliable and getting worse
“Ring maintenance seems hostile to use outside of expected use cases.”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “The limits of Rust, or why you should probably not follow Amazon and Cloudflare” “Ring has been a problem and it has only gotten worse now.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance” “ring is explicitly an experiment, not suitable for use”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “The limits of Rust, or why you should probably not follow Amazon and Cloudflare”
Other video doorbells people recommend
The two most recommended other video doorbells, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reolink doorbell | 15 | 1 | 94% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Ring doorbell | 14 | 44 | 24% | 7 | 5 yrs3 owners | — |
| Amazon RingThis page | 11 | 35 | 24% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 48 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“they could and they did. And it was shut down after it was exposed.”
“almost all "smart" appliances have this flaw”
“Ring is explicitly designed to be web-server agnostic and therefore intentionally does not expose the full Jetty/Jakarta surface.”
“Google, Facebook, and recently Ring, are excellent examples.”
“Like Ring is a door chime.”
“an in-house alternative to my Ring subscription”
“It had changed from the English edition to the German translation!”
“cover for Ring, Flock and who knows what else.”
“all the surveillance of waymo, ring, and flock solved zero crimes.”
“Ring still works for some reason”
“wanted to get away from Ring and other cloud services”
“Ring maintenance seems hostile to use outside of expected use cases.”
“Ring is a de facto standard for better or worse.”
“ring is explicitly an experiment, not suitable for use”
“Palantir, Ring and Flock Safety say hi.”
“Flock and Ring are awful because they enable easy surveillance and search after the fact”
“Amazon Ring is bad and you should feel bad, get a better surveillance system”
“Like ring recently, they just try to see it the thing sticks and that pisses me off.”
“Ring can take photos from your camera.”
“They're just as bad, if not worse, than Ring.”
“Ring works fine, I don't share the footage”
“The latter is a fork of BoringSSL.”
“the implementation is quite strange as well”
“Total neighbourhood surveillance for the benefit of the 0.03% is way out of proportion.”
“Ring has been a problem and it has only gotten worse now.”
“I thought Ring was already sending data to law enforcement agencies (that paid Amazon for it).”
“it is already a mass surveillance network”
“this is people recording their neighbors without consent”
“The wholesomeness is so forced and cringe that it makes you think they have something to hide.”
“I doubt Amazon has anyone like Alfred in charge of this thing.”
“an even more powerful surveillance technology is being advertised at the Super Bowl as a great and wonderful thing”
“Even more concerning is that Ring is partnering with Flock”
“the most compelling scifi to me personally is the generation ship stuff”
“A number of projects are shifting to it”
“the invasive surveillance like Flock and Ring”
“Curve sell rings to use for this.”
“Definitely can’t opt out of ring.”
“So far I've only run into this problem with 3 services (Ring, Blink, and Paychex)”
“Police can still obtain Ring footage via warrants or "emergency" requests”
“privacy violating companies like flock and ring”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.