After a decade of offering cameras for your home, Ring is finally coming to your car. The Ring Car Cam has just been officially unveiled at CES 2023, and is the company’s take on the dash cam, offering improved security for your car when you’re in and out of the front seat.
But there are a few features that help the Ring Car Cam stand out compared to the best dash cams on the market. The main one is that the company insists this is a Ring camera for your car, not a dash cam, along with all the same benefits and experiences as its other products. It’s also been designed in a very particular way, offering practicality on top of the aesthetically pleasing look.
Update: The Ring Car Cam has taken home one of our Best of CES 2023 Awards. Find out what products debuting at this year's show are joining it on our list of top prodcuts.
That’s why the Car Cam has a crowbar-esque look to it with a stand that’s designed to fit between your dashboard and windshield. It’s held in place by physics and the help of some semi-sticky rubber, and means there’s no suction cup or adhesive involved in the installation.
Speaking of which, setup is done via the Ring app much like any other product the company has to offer. Everything you need is in the box, and the camera has been designed to slot into place on the vast majority of cars.
Meanwhile, the Car Cam’s dual-camera system can get a great view of the inside and outside of your car. According to Ring, the front-facing camera is close enough to the glass that windshield reflections aren’t a major concern. The rear camera is primarily for recording the inside of your car, though it can see out of the back window during the day, offering close to 360-degrees of coverage. It’s not so good at this when it’s dark out, though.
This proximity to the front of the car also helps with the Ring Car Cam’s cable management. Rather than plugging into a 12V socket or your car’s fuse box, the Car Cam draws battery power via your car’s OBD-II port. That’s a lot simpler than hardwiring into the fuse box, believe me, and it also ensures the cable is hidden from sight — tucked away at the front of the dash where nobody can see it.
Drawing the power directly means the Car Cam can stay in low-power mode when the engine is switched off, only reactivating if it senses something happening in or around your car. Should this happen you’ll get an alert via the Ring app, just as you would with any other Ring device.
In high-powered mode, better known as the times the engine is switched on, the Ring Car Cam is recording all the time. But there is a manual privacy cover for the interior camera, which kills the microphone and camera feed. The camera itself has an LED status light when it’s active, so there’s no doubt as to what’s going on.
As you’d expect from any rival dash cam, the Ring Car Cam has a suite of sensors that detect incidents while you’re driving, and saves the footage to the cloud. Alexa support is also available, and saying “Alexa record” will activate the Traffic Stop feature that records and saves several minutes of footage — even if the car is parked.
Being a mobile camera, the Ring Car Cam generally relies on an LTE connection — though there is Wi-Fi for those times your car is parked within reach of your home network. LTE offers Live View wherever your car may be, and supports optional end-to-end encryption. Sadly, LTE connectivity will require a Ring Protect Go subscription, which costs you $6 a month or $60 a year and is separate from the standard Ring Protect plan you may already have.
The Ring Car Cam itself will be priced at $249.99, but will be available to pre-order for $199.99 for a limited time. Pre-orders open today over at Ring and Amazon, while the Car Cam itself will be shipping to customers in the U.S. at some point in February.
