License Plate Recognition

I think it’d be great if Ring put out a camera with true License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology. I’m not just talking about upgrades to camera resolution, I’m talking about total camera optomization.

How many videos of porch pirates have you seen where the plate couldn’t be read? Imagine if recording was triggered by the alarm or motion or even by your neighbors ring alarm. I’d be happy to contribute to community police investigations and really make things hard for criminals out there.

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I live at the end of a cul de sac. I need a camera that I can point up the street, but I need more of a telephoto view instead of a wide angle (already have a ring camera in place to see the whole cul de sac) so I am able to make out detail such as license plates if need be. Do you have or plan for an accessory or camera with that ability?

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I am a happy user of Floodlight and would like to see a few new features:

  1. schedule two different motion zones (day and night zones)

  2. alert for cars (now its people only)

  3. alert for specific precious recorded cars

  4. flashing option on/off lights, instead of just on

  5. read license plates better or improve software to un blur elements of video.

  6. record all in between footage but only send notifications from motion zone (to review if suspect cars/people) were in the area at all.

Keep up the good work !

Regards,

David

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I’m not sure if this is a good idea. There are privacy considerations and potential for abuse from law enforcements. I would rather learn my lesson from porch pirates than risk this country turning into a police state.

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I agree. I own 10+ ring cameras and am desperately waiting for a tele lens model.

Like most home owners I have a driveway in the front and the cameras mounted around my house are useless for capturing anything happeing on the street.

We had cars broken into and don’t have any way to capture descent video.

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Yes, License plate recognition would be fantastic. Don’t bother with wifi, batteries, solar, etc. for that camera. POE only would be fine as it would eliminate all the issues associates with moving high volumes of data over wifi. Making the $100/yr monitoring plan required would also be ok, as people understand Ring would be storing much more data with that camera (very high frame rate camera, plus very high volume as it would be pointed at cars moving on streets, etc…).

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Ring cameras are in need of a technology refresh. For example, I use the Spotlight Cam Mount. It could use a video upgrade from 2K to 4K and a wi-fi connection upgrade from 2.4 to 5GHz. It’s hard wired to house power, so does not suffer from inadequate power like some doorbells. Since consumer electronics get cheaper over time, how about dropping the price a bit (say $199) and then coming out with a 4K device, maybe around $279? The new video doorbells have 5GHz radios but are stuck at 2K video, which may be adequate for a doorbell but not for wide areas that a Spotlight Cam would cover if you want to capture a face or license plate at a distance.

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Swann already has 4x 4k PoE Security camera set w 2-way audio for $788 with TB HD for continuous monitoring locally, heat + motion detection, analytics, etc. The price will sure come down as Wyze is coming into the market as well.

Ring will need to do just as good or better than Swann and the upcoming competitors to attract people to choose their (if so planned) version of 4k cameras - with continuous monitoring.

People are all going to figure out which is the best product among these vendors for this upcoming important upgrade (I’m one of them),

for the same critical reason of much better video capture of distant objects (faces, license plate).

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I use another vendor’s cameras and NVR as my main system, 4K capable. Ring is behind the curve in this area, but as I have both I’d like Ring to be as capable as my other system. Especially for the price.

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Yes we need this Ring Team. I hope you guys read the comments. A license plate reader would work wonders in my condo complex where our doors face the street. For example I have a Ring peephole camera and my neighbors around me have Ring doorbells. There has been a rash of auto break-ins and stolen packages. The video footage is highly unusable because you can’t make out the vehicles license plates. My Ring cameras are set to HDR. One is approximately 6 - 8 feet to the street. I also have a Ring outdoor camera overlooking the driveway which sits on a second story and points to the same street which is roughly about 25 - 30 feet away. I understand this is over the expected use/distance limit but you really need something that can get an absolute clear picture from distance with LPR technology.

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People would be willing to pay more for a security camera that could better capture license plates at a typical distrance from house to street, even in dark lighting. AI might be able to assist with the capture, just like AI helps capture faces on iphones. It could be that the camera feeds a central AI processor (that in turn feeds back the plate number on the camera feed) if that saves the user money and makes it easier to achieve the license plate recognition effect.

Once you sold such a security camera, a StreetCam if you will, then folks could Opt-In to share this street view with anyone who suffers a crime within xxx feet, with motion video available for the 15 minutes before and after the crime. If the criminal parks a vehicle away from the house they target, this would help provide information about the criminal.

https://www.intelli-vision.com/license-plate-recognition/

https://www.openalpr.com/

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Just in case anyone else wants to try this, I didn’t have success. I 3D printed a housing that went on my RING camera that would let me attached a telephoto lens kit (like the ones you buy for your iPhone). It did indeed zoom in and gave me 10x zoom but it was like looking through a soda straw. 80% of the image is black with just a small circle in the center from the telephoto lens. The result was that non of the motion triggering occurred fast enough to capture anything in the small field of view that I had. I ended up throwing it all away. I agree this is an area that RING should offer some options for. Not all situations call for 120 deg field of view.

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I agree 100%. Ring is far behind the curve and LPR is absolutely needed. I see no reason why RING just can’t do a firmware upgrade to all of the current RING cameras so they have this capability.

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You are not entitled to any form of privacy once you leave you front door so get use to having every move you make recorded. Only people that have something to hide worry about such stuff. LPR are perfectly legal and I’m very glad they are popping up everywhere. The idea is to capture every LP that passes and then hope RING develops what is call “vehicle recognition” software so the LP, vehicle, etc become one file on the web for life. This way society knowns who the bad guys are.

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Also agree would like ring to develop this! As someone almost who had attempted break in police unable to catch the criminals - and no clear car plate or description

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Same here, I already started to looking for a new system, no one will buy ring in my area, something happened and I have cameras on house and by the street, as they all found out the camera are for live view and motion detection only… the videos are useless and the lack of LPR is worse… the doorbell is a hit but I get teased for still.having ring cameras after the incident and then we had the unlocked car people… no plate so why call the police… the porch pirates know it to now, cover face and your safe… sad.

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The police can do nothing with a video of someone breaking into your car, or stealing a package. It happens all the time and they do zero follow up unless you can get a license plate number associated with the crime. I’d be willing to pay more for it!

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Hi,
we have a terrible package thief problem in our neighborhood. I caught them on video (it was a team - woman getting in & out of the car to grab the packages, man driving the car) but I couldn’t make out the license plate from the doorbell camera. Maybe you guys can make some kind of an inconspicuous front yard camera that can capture license plates? (fast food places have ‘em)

This problem is only gonna get worse with people now shopping online more than ever. Please come out with something to help!

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Can we please get a good enough camera to pick up license plates? Or incorporate software into your system to get a clear shot? I was hoping my Ring could catch all the trespassers so I can get the cops to charge them for ruining my lawn. I already invested $ in Ring, but we need this feature and I will look elsewhere if necessary to get it. Thanks

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Gotta fully agree… Ring cameras are good for generally seeing if someone’s on your property, but you barely get enough visual detail to do much good otherwise.

License plates - can’t make out what they say unless the camera is at knee level and aimed right at the vehicle.

Faces - nothing that would stand up in court

We need better detail, and different lens options. Not every application is wide angle.

Maybe reduce compression, cache the data on local device’s RAM, and then trickle it up to the cloud.

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