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 Beginning
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
Spying
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 argue that users do not know this and that Ring misleads them. In fact, in January 2020 a Ring employee was fired for “improperly accessing Ring users' video data”.7With employees having access to videos on private property, they are likely seeing homeowner’s children playing in the front yard, watching someone change a tire in the driveway, or talking to the neighbor across the street. In a product that claims to increase your home’s security, buyers would not be thrilled to know employees have access to their camera’s footage at all times.
Without Consent
Their terms and conditions also state, for legal issues, that a user’s camera cannot point at public streets or neighbors yards6. Therefore, if someone’s camera were to point at a neighbor’s lawn, they are illegally recording their neighbor on private property. Most smart doorbell’s terms and conditions state that the person who installed the camera is at fault if legal action is taken6. However, the regular, untrained person who threw out the terms and conditions without so much as a glance at them would not know to install the camera to only include their private property. Consequently, for this to be ethical, this information should be in the directions as a person installs their smart doorbell. Simply putting crucial information in the terms and conditions is not enough these days, as it is well known that people do not read them.
Hacking
In addition, cameras connected to the internet are very susceptible to hackers. In December 2019, Ring notified more than 3000 owners asking them to change their passwords and turn on two-factor authentication after exposing their login information online8. All someone needs to gain access to the video from smart doorbells is the login information to a person’s smartphone app. From there, they can see the owner’s private property and control the app. Break-ins would be much easier once a hacker has access to their security system.
A mixup within the doorbell company can also create an unintentional hacking situation. In 2016, Ring mixed up two databases which allowed users to “hack” someone else’s camera. Many people reported seeing video feed from someone else’s property, and that they couldn’t see their own property. Seeing live feed from someone else’s property is essentially stalking, and very concerning for a security company to make such a large mistake.
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/
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3mdvk/ring-fired-employees-abusing-video-data
- https://www.consumerreports.org/hacking/ring-doorbell-accounts-may-be-vulnerable-to-hackers/
