Amazon’s Ring brand just pushed its camera lineup into a new era — at least on paper. At a fall hardware event today, the company introduced a raft of refreshed Ring cameras and doorbells that pack higher resolutions (hello 4K), new zoom and low-light tricks under the marketing name “Retinal Vision,” plus a batch of AI features that promise to make your device smarter about people, packages — and even lost pets. Preorders are open now, and several software features will roll out over the next two months.

The hardware: sleeker designs, lots of pixels, and PoE if you want it

Ring’s new family includes both entry-level updates and full-fat 4K models. The headline devices and U.S. prices announced today include: the Wired Doorbell Plus ($179.99) and Indoor Cam Plus ($59.99) (both 2K), and a set of 4K models — Wired Doorbell Pro 4K ($249.99), Outdoor Cam Pro 4K ($199.99), Spotlight Cam Pro 4K ($249.99) and Floodlight Cam Pro 4K ($279.99). For pros and installers, Amazon is also offering Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) versions — for example, the Spotlight Cam Pro POE and Wired Doorbell Elite — at higher price points. All of these are available to preorder starting today.

Design-wise, Ring didn’t reinvent the wheel: the new models are sleeker and feel like an evolution rather than a total redesign. But the move to native 4K in multiple products is notable — Ring previously concentrated on 1080p and a few higher-res models, so this is the company saying “we can play in the premium video space now.”

What “Retinal Vision” is

Ring’s marketing term, Retinal Vision, bundles a few camera-side improvements and cloud processing tricks. Onstage, Amazon described it as a “multistep process” that uses AI-driven tuning to improve clarity, especially in low light, and to make colors and details pop more than older models. The system also supports up to 10× zoom (digital, on the 4K sensors), which is one of the practical reasons 4K is useful: more pixels to crop into when you need detail.

A critical point: a lot of what makes footage “look better” is software — sharpening, noise reduction, HDR-style exposure blending — not just the sensor. Retinal Vision appears to be Ring’s name for that whole imaging stack: better sensors + smarter processing. That can translate to better night footage and clearer package/face detail, but it’s also the sort of improvement that’s hard to fully judge until you see side-by-side comparisons in everyday conditions.

New software tricks: Familiar Faces, Alexa Plus, and Search Party

Ring is pairing the new hardware with features intended to cut down on pointless alerts and add utility:

• Familiar Faces: an AI-assisted facial recognition option that lets you register friends and family so your doorbell can tell you who’s at the door. Ring says this will reduce routine notifications (for example, when a roommate walks by).
• Alexa Plus / Alexa+ Greetings: tighter Alexa integration that lets your camera act more like an “intelligent doorbell assistant” — answering the door, managing deliveries, asking solicitors why they’re there, and following scripted instructions. Essentially, Ring is baking deeper voice-assistant automation into the doorbell experience.
• Search Party: a community-oriented feature for lost pets — if someone reports a missing dog in the Ring app, cameras in the neighborhood can participate in a “search party,” where AI scans footage for potential matches and flags results. Amazon says dog search support starts rolling out in November, with cats and other pets to follow.

According to Amazon, Familiar Faces and Alexa Plus Greetings will begin rolling out in December. That staged rollout is typical — hardware ships first, cloud features follow as Amazon fine-tunes them.

Why you should care (and why you should worry)

On the upside: better resolution and smarter image processing mean clearer evidence when something happens at your door — better reads on packages, clearer license plates, improved identification of suspicious motion at night. PoE options are welcome for people who want a stable, wired setup without depending on Wi-Fi. For many homeowners, those are solid, practical wins.

On the downside: Ring has a bumpy privacy history, and some of these features raise fresh concerns. The company has previously been flagged by regulators and privacy groups for poor internal access controls, incidents of employees or attackers accessing user footage, and controversial integrations with law enforcement. In 2023, the FTC brought issues to light about employee access and inadequate protections; Amazon later settled and has since announced policy changes — but critics say new face recognition and police-facing tools mean fresh scrutiny is warranted. Civil-liberties groups have also criticized Ring’s law-enforcement partnerships as creating a sprawling surveillance network that can be misused.

Those concerns are not hypothetical. Facial recognition algorithms are imperfect, and when false positives meet law enforcement, the consequences can be serious. Even if Ring markets Familiar Faces as an opt-in convenience feature, the existence of that capability — and of broader data-sharing channels — is why privacy advocates and regulators pay close attention when camera makers enable more powerful analysis of who is “in frame.”

Practical tips if you’re thinking about upgrading (or buying one)

If the new cameras tempt you, here’s a short checklist to square up convenience and safety:

• Treat facial recognition as opt-in: only enable Familiar Faces if you’re comfortable with the feature and understand how data is stored/used. Read the fine print about how long “training” data is retained. (Amazon says Familiar Faces is opt-in and will roll out in December.)
• Enable two-factor authentication on your Ring account and use a unique, strong password. Ring has faced account-takeover incidents in the past; 2FA reduces that risk.
• Consider end-to-end encryption where available. Ring has offered E2EE as a feature for some devices; enabling it reduces the chance of unauthorized access, though it can limit sharing options. Know the tradeoffs.
• Audit police/third-party access settings in the app and know your rights. If you want to restrict law-enforcement access or data sharing, look for the relevant controls in the Ring app and in your account settings.

If you want a concise privacy primer, Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included and the FTC both offer sensible, user-facing advice on hardening smart-camera setups.

Bottom line: an upgrade — but not a free pass

Ring’s new lineup is a meaningful step up in raw capability: more pixels, better low-light imaging, richer software tricks, and community features that sound helpful on paper. For shoppers who prize crisp footage and convenience features (and who already live in the Alexa/Ring ecosystem), there’s a clear appeal — especially with PoE options for reliable installs.

But the arrival of Familiar Faces and more powerful cloud processing also reopens familiar debates about surveillance, consent, and control. If you’re buying into Ring’s brighter, high-resolution future, take the extra five minutes to lock down your account and think carefully before enabling facial recognition or broad sharing features. Better optics don’t erase the governance questions that have followed Ring for years.

What I’d like to see next

Ring should make E2EE easy and default where it makes sense, publish clear, machine-readable retention and deletion policies for AI training data, and offer a clear audit log when footage is accessed or requested by third parties — transparency measures that would make high-res cameras easier to trust.

Preorders are live today; Familiar Faces and Alexa Plus roll out in December; Search Party (starting with dogs) begins in November.