Smart Doorbell
Smart doorbells are doorbells that connect to a homeowner’s smartphone via an internet connection and notifies them when someone rings their doorbell. As soon as a visitor presses the button on the doorbell, in addition to the normal doorbell noise made in the house, the owner receives a notification on their smartphone. It can also be activated via motion sensors that can sense when a person is close to the doorbell, such as on a person’s front porch. Once the doorbell is activated, a person can see and communicate with the visitor remotely through their smartphone app.
Contents
History and Growth
The First
One of the most popular and earliest smart doorbells was created in 2013, the DoorBot. Pitched on SharkTank1 in November 2013, the Sharks actually passed up on the opportunity to invest because they couldn’t see how it would progress and expand to be in every house in America like the founder Jamie Siminoff claimed. Rebranded in 20142 as the Ring Doorbell, Siminoff sold his company to Amazon for over $1 billion in 2018.
Today, there are many different brands of smart doorbells, however Ring still tops the industry3 in popularity and sales. Other brands of smart doorbells include Nest, Skybell, Arlo, and Vivint.3
Wilshire Park
In 2015, Ring doorbell offered to give 500 homeowners in Wilshire Park their product for free. After the installations, police in the area claimed that home burglaries dropped “astronomically”4. Positive media coverage on smart doorbells exploded, praising the doorbell on how it gives homeowners a sense of security.
Sense of Safety
Many people switched to smart doorbells because it gives them a sense of security. This is partly due to the positive news coverage of smart doorbells after the Wilshire park project and others like it. Positive press came from people all over the country as smart doorbells stopped home invasions and package theft in their tracks. Videos of homeowners scaring away potential thieves by speaking to them through their doorbells went viral, and the industry used it to their advantage. Ring even has a page of these viral videos on their website5, using it in their marketing efforts as to why everyone should own a smart doorbell.
Ethical concerns
Terms and Conditions
When agreeing to any of the smart doorbell’s terms and conditions upon purchasing the product, users agree, for the most part unknowingly, that employees have access to the cached videos6 from the camera. Obviously, because people do not read terms and conditions in their entirety, many would be upset when they find this out.
Consent
Their terms and conditions also state, for legal issues, that your camera cannot point at public streets or neighbors yards. If someone’s camera were to point at a neighbor’s lawn, they are illegally recording their neighbor on private property. Smart doorbell’s terms and conditions state that the person who installed the camera is at fault if legal action is taken. However, untrained people would not know how to install the camera to not include public property.
Hacking
References
- https://qz.com/1217898/watch-shark-tank-judges-reject-jamie-siminoffs-idea-for-ring-that-amazon-just-spent-1-billion-on/
- https://news.cision.com/ring/r/doorbot-announces-company-rebranding-and-new--enhanced-wi-fi-enabled-video-doorbell,c9651452
- https://www.safehome.org/doorbell-cameras/best/
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjp53/how-ring-went-from-shark-tank-reject-to-americas-scariest-surveillance-company
- https://tv.ring.com/category/videos/crime-prevention
- https://www.marketplace.org/2019/01/17/why-doorbell-video-cameras-are-raising-some-ethical-concerns/
