‘Alexa, I’m getting pulled over’: Ring debuts dashcam with Traffic Stop mode – Roadshow

Enlarge Image

Amazon subsidiary Ring is taking its first steps into cars with the announcement of a trio of vehicle security products: the Ring Car Alarm, Ring Car Cam and Ring Car Connect.

Ring is best insoles for keen hiking boots known for its home security cameras, including the <a website Alarm system and its <a website Video Doorbell. Announced Thursday — as part of a deluge of Amazon announcements — these are the company’s first automotive security products.

Ring Car Cam

The most fully featured product announced is the Ring Car Cam, a dual-camera dashcam with connected features powered by Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. It records video of the road and the vehicle’s cabin as you drive along, which in the case of an event — perhaps a fender bender — it can send to the cloud for retrieval.

When a severe impact is detected, Emergency Crash Assistance is triggered and an audio call is made to a response center to determine if the driver is OK. Respond that you’re fine and no action is taken. Ask for help or fail to respond and emergency services are directed to you. The system will also try to contact the driver’s phone if it can’t get a response.

The Car Cam also has a Traffic Stop mode that can record interactions with the police, saving the audio and video to the cloud. When being pulled over, drivers can say, “Alexa, I’m getting pulled over,” and the unit will verbally communicate that it’s recording and streaming the content to the cloud. Traffic Stop can also notify a list of driver-specified emergency contacts.

“Traffic stops can be a time when having video is important, so that everyone remains on their best behavior,” said Ring’s Head of Mobile Products Nathan Ackerman, in an interview with Roadshow. “So, we developed a feature to support that.”