Last week, Amazon (AMZN) raised eyebrows at its fall 2025 hardware event when it announced several major new tech products it plans to sell to customers.
Some of the new products include three Kindle Scribes (one with a color display), a Fire TV Omni QLED lineup with built-in Alexa Plus, and a redesigned/more expensive Echo Dot Max.
Amazon also announced several updates to its Ring cameras and doorbells. It unveiled an entirely new lineup of these devices, which contain 4K video capabilities, artificial intelligence, and “Retinal Vision” technology, and are priced between $199 and $279.
It also introduced a $179.99 Ring Wired Doorbell and $59.99 Indoor Cam Plus with 2K video.
Image source: Amazon
Amazon’s new Ring devices have an invasive new feature
While these new Ring devices have sharper video resolution, they also have a new feature that is making some customers very uncomfortable.
Amazon said these devices will have facial recognition capabilities through a new feature called Familiar Faces, which “intelligently recognizes familiar people and empowers customers to reduce notifications triggered by familiar people’s routine activities,” according to a recent press release.
“The feature enriches Ring notifications, video events, and timeline with personalized context of who is detected, eliminating guesswork and making it effortless to find and review important moments involving specific familiar people across the Ring App experience,” said Amazon.
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So, for example, if a friend or a neighbor is spotted on Ring camera footage, customers can tag them in the Ring app by name. The next time the camera detects that person, an alert pops up, saying that person is at the door.
The feature will be available for new Ring doorbell and camera devices in December. In a recent report from The Washington Post, a Ring spokesperson told the news outlet that the feature will be automatically turned off unless customers choose to enable it.
She also said that Ring customers are responsible for complying with relevant state laws that “may require obtaining consent prior to identifying people” via facial recognition. The feature will be unavailable in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, and it will be restricted “as a precaution” because of other state legislation.
Ring owners are creeped out by this new feature
Amazon’s new Familiar Faces feature for Ring devices has sparked widespread concern among consumers.
In a recent Reddit post discussing the upcoming feature, some consumers claimed that embedding facial recognition into Ring devices could allow Amazon to exploit the feature.
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“Amazon can’t be trusted with this tech it’ll end up in some database for targeted ads or worse,” wrote one Reddit user.
“Probably not that long then until Amazon builds a database of your every movement, current location, spending habits, social media posts, and voting records and sell access to law enforcement,” wrote another.
Some Ring customers even claimed that Amazon’s announcement of the upcoming feature prompted them to cancel their Ring subscriptions.
“Well, time to get rid of my Ring camera,” said one customer.
“Did not even know about this and canceled my Ring plan today. Leaving all this spyware behind in the house I am selling and moving to a full Eufy system. Better quality and no cloud storage,” stated another.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy and policy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, warned that Amazon’s new Familiar Faces feature is “invasive for anyone who walks within range of your Ring doorbell. They are not consenting to this.”
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