Ring Video Descriptions take the mystery out of your camera alerts

Smart home cameras have long sent vague alerts, which can be a double-edged sword. You want to know what’s happening on your property, but it can be stressful to get the notification only to realize on playback that it was clearly a false alarm. Ring’s latest update aims to make those notifications more specific, describing what your camera sees.

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff announced the new Ring Video Descriptions in an Amazon post. Powered by generative AI, they’re now rolling out in beta for Ring Home Premium subscribers in the US and Canada. Instead of generic motion alerts, users will now see short text summaries of what their cameras actually capture, such as “a person is walking up the steps with a black dog” or “two people are peering into a white car in the driveway.”

Siminoff says the goal is to help users quickly distinguish between urgent and everyday activities with just a glance at their phone. These summaries focus only on the main subject triggering the alert and are designed to be concise enough for instant recognition.

The new feature is part of Ring’s broader AI push. Alongside Video Descriptions, the company says it’s working on intelligent alerts that merge multiple motion events into one summary and “custom anomaly alerts” that only notify you when something unusual happens based on your home’s routine behavior.

Ring isn’t the first brand to roll out AI-generated camera summaries. For example, Google added similar Gemini-powered descriptions and smart search features to its Nest cameras last year.