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Ring owners are returning their cameras

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Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#271

Post by mikkupikku »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #266
mikkupikku wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was interesting to watch liberal progressives learn in real time that federal agents are allowed to just murder people. Right wing conspiracy theorists have known this since Ruby Ridge.

Really? “The left” has never trusted the police. I can tell you as a person who studied the civil rights movement, whose still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow South and who personal knew some of the secondary people who made the history books during that time (I am 51), “the left” or at least a large part of never trusted any law enforcement.

From my perspective, the American progressive left is deeply distrustful of local / state police, but are more inclined to believe the feds good at least insofar as they enforce good progressive laws against backwards locals. The feds enforcing desegregation is perhaps the root origin of this sentiment. The conservative right on the other hand is very inclined to support local police, but have hated feds with notable intensity, probably sharing the same root but really intensified in the 90s.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#272

Post by ericmay »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #269
ericmay wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well we took it from a communist, anti-American regime executing their psyop and made it our own. Either way just stop using it and nobody gets to psyop you. It’s very straightforward.

I can't stop the influence of it on my life by not using it. Perhaps it's not as straightforward as it seems to you. China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes. Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems. You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner?…

> I can't stop the influence of it on my life by not using it. Perhaps it's not as straightforward as it seems to you.

Yea but you can stop what would be 80+% of the influence on your life by not using it. It is very straightforward.

> China didn't seem to be doing much with it, as far as the West goes.

China (and other malicious actors) have demonstrably leveraged social media platforms to inflame tensions, create anti-American and anti-Western sentiment, and more. With platforms like TikTok they were able to more directly influence content, they understand the algorithm that is used, &c.

But let me put it to you from a different angle. If you don't think China was or could have been using TikTok to influence Americans and westerners in general, then I'd suggest the US had nothing to do with, oh, idk, the Arab Spring. :)

> Not sure if they were using it against their citizens though? Much safer to have it Chinese controlled for me, it seems.

Well they have other platforms for that, social credit score, TVs on every corner, &c. Much safer for me to have it American controlled so I don't have an authoritarian Chinese communist party trying to influence me or anyone around me, or further inflaming tensions for their own gain.

> You suggesting that China was "anti American" sounds crazy to me. They were surely your biggest trading partner? Like, I hate all those guys so much that we're going to make everything they want at whatever price they want to pay ...? In the past it might have been possible to argue they were anti-American in their politics;

Well it's not just Americans and Canadiens, it's the EU too. The strategy was to leverage incredibly cheap labor (slave labor in some cases) and loose environmental restrictions to start manufacturing cheap goods and then move up the value chain. Inherently there's nothing to wrong with the approach (minus the slave labor and all of that), but as China continued to do so they did so while also undercutting competitiveness from other countries and blocs. They artificially devalue their currency, they routinely broke WTO rules so much so that other countries said to hell with it. The EU for example has historically tariffed Chinese products. Why? Because if they don't then local industries in the EU with long summer vacations and all of these nice things would be out-competed and out of business.

This isn't really controversial or anything. It's pretty well known, and from an American standpoint the point of view with respect to China is rather bipartisan.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#273

Post by anonymousiam »

I had a few Ring doorbells from 2019-2024. I ditched them both because I saw the quality of the video degrade slowly over that time, probably in an effort to reduce cloud storage costs. The reliability of the motion detection also decreased over the same period.

The final straw was when somebody ripped one of the Ring Elite (wired) doorbells off the outside wall. (This was during a Teamsters labor action against Amazon, but I cannot prove any relationship.) There was never a motion alert, and no footage of the culprit was recorded. The final frame had something in it that may have been a person, but it was impossible to be sure.

Having one of my Rings stolen was actually a blessing. I had the police come and take a report, and submitted a claim to Ring. They sent a free replacement, which I promptly listed on eBay, along with the other used one.

So after paying $5/month times two doorbells for five years, I went looking for something better. I settled on Reolink. Everything about them is better. The video quality is far superior, the motion detection is outstanding (and very customizable). Also, the Reolink doorbells cost less than a third of what the Ring Elites cost.

They offer optional cloud storage for about the same price as Ring, but you can also opt for free local storage (using a microSD card in the doorbell). I've got both doorbells set up with 256GB microSD cards, and have them both streaming RTSP to my NAS/NVR, which is something the Ring will never be able to do.

Also, Reolink has made no announcements about partnering with law enforcement, or anyone else. I suppose they might grant access to their cloud, but I doubt they would directly access the microSD cards, and certainly would be unable to access my NVR. I prefer to have some control over my own data, and the Reolink doorbells give me that, while being better and cheaper at what they do.

The one feature the Rings had which was not easily replaceable was smart home integration with motion detection, but I was able to implement that using edgebridge, my NAS/NVR, and some webhooks. My workaround is actually superior to what Ring offered because it's all local, and will continue to function even during an Internet outage.

https://github.com/toddaustin07/edgebridge

https://github.com/toddaustin07/lanmotion

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#274

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

nindalf wrote: post #155

This news article boils down to "a few people on reddit did something", which is interesting. But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream. Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not. As long as they're honouring return requests freely, you know that the number of returns is within their accepted levels of distressed inventory. If it's getting into uncomfortable territory, they'll start rate limiting people by…

I’m not so sure. In terms of total revenue, yes probably insignificant. But in the world of subscriptions and a highly speculative market, I think declining subs can have an outsized impact on share prices.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#275

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

mikkupikku wrote: post #271
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? “The left” has never trusted the police. I can tell you as a person who studied the civil rights movement, whose still living parents grew up in the Jim Crow South and who personal knew some of the secondary people who made the history books during that time (I am 51), “the left” or at least a large part of never trusted any law enforcement.

From my perspective, the American progressive left is deeply distrustful of local / state police, but are more inclined to believe the feds good at least insofar as they enforce good progressive laws against backwards locals. The feds enforcing desegregation is perhaps the root origin of this sentiment. The conservative right on the other hand is very inclined to support local police, but have hated feds with notable…

For context, I am from here and my parents grew up here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Movement

So I had first and second level connections to people who were involved in the civil rights movement. My mom knew someone or knew who knew someone that could get me a call with almost anyone of influence in the Black community nationally. I went to school with a lot of their children - at least the 2nd or 3rd level connections.

The civil rights movement was very aware of things like this at the time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_letter

https://features.apmreports.org/arw/king/d1.html

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#276

Post by slumberlust »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #247
nindalf wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you analyse AB InBev's stock performance in that period? Because it doesn't look bad to me. [1] It looks like it was $65 before the boycott in April 2023, falling to $55 a couple of months later. But it was back up to $65 by the end of the year. It sits at $80 today. If I hadn't told you the date of the boycott, would you have been able to spot it on this chart? [1] - https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock…

On the contrary. It appears that Bud Light sales continued to fall. https://sherwood.news/business/beer-bud-light-market-share-b... Budweiser stock did recover, but they haven't (afaik) repeated the behavior that got them boycotted in the first place. It appears that this boycott achieved exactly what was sought. I'd agree that this is a rare exception, and that boycotts are almost never successful. But this really i…

Alcohol across all verticals is down. How can we attribute this fall to their issues specifically?

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#277

Post by assimpleaspossi »

mingus88 wrote: post #240
assimpleaspossi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to everyone when the plates and faces are recorded or scanned? Who is looking at those every day?

Nobody looks at them. It’s 2026. In the U.S., municipal vehicles have ALPR scanners on them. They go into a database Cop cars will ping if a flagged plate is seen (even if the front and back plates don’t match) and the officer will pull you over. Literally happens every day.

>Nobody looks at them.

Exactly my point but most of the comments here would have you believe you're going to be stupid up against a wall at any moment.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#278

Post by pimlottc »

nindalf wrote: post #155

This news article boils down to "a few people on reddit did something", which is interesting. But we know reddit and HN are definitely not mainstream. Is this hurting Amazon? No, it is not. As long as they're honouring return requests freely, you know that the number of returns is within their accepted levels of distressed inventory. If it's getting into uncomfortable territory, they'll start rate limiting people by…

Pretty much any time you see a headline like this, you should mentally add the word "Some" to the front of it.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#279

Post by lifestyleguru »

aweiher wrote: post #125
lifestyleguru wrote: post #14

American surveillance is one thing. All over Europe people install Chinese IP cameras mostly from paranoic and imaginary reasons. Camera literally facing neighbour's windows and doors and their neighbour's own camera. Nobody understands that it's economically impossible to sell IP camera with a mobile app and cloud storage of video for 150 EUR. Their business model is not simply selling cameras. EDIT. I'm really conf…

Personally, I know nobody who has the need to install this type of crappy surveillance shit on their front door in Europe to start with. You frame it like the only alternative to American surveillance cameras is Chinese surveillance cameras, but no cameras seems to be no option for you. Who is the one with the paranoid, imaginary reasons? Edit: Ah btw, here in germany we have of course cameras to see who is in front…

I don't understand why all answers make it all about Germany. I say "Europe" and you say "but here in Germany". If you insist on Germany I saw plenty of cheap Chinese IP cameras in Turkish, Arab, and Asian districts of German cities and in tourist hotspots of German cities. Every noodle and kebab place has at least one inside or outside. IP camera, doorbell camera, surveillance camera, call it however you want.

Re: Ring owners are returning their cameras

#280

Post by xnx »

asdff wrote: post #4

Funny how a single superbowl ad from Ring themselves was able to do in one weekend what a thousand and one anti Ring bloggers were unable to do for the past 10 years straight. This commercial and the response will probably be studied in marketing classes.

I hope whoever inside Ring warned about this ad gets a fat "I told you so" bonus.
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