Amazon Buys Smart Doorbell Company Ring For $1 Billion

Amazon has bought security company Ring that’s mostly known for its smart doorbells. It isn’t clear yet what the electronic commerce and cloud computing company has planned for its latest acquisition, but it was already disclosed that the deal involved $1 billion.

CNBC was the first one to break the news about Amazon’s new acquisition. According to the news outlet, though Amazon has yet to disclose its reason for buying Ring, it’s already a given that the e-commerce giant could use the security firm to beef up its Key delivery system.

Just last October, Amazon introduced Key, a system that enables delivery people to drop off packages inside the homes of users with the use of keyless mobile phone technology. Unfortunately, Amazon’s new product wasn’t really received well because of certain issues, including one pertaining to the possibility of setting off a home security system if the customer failed to manually switch the system off on the day the package is delivered.

It’s very likely that Amazon will use one of its largest acquisitions yet to make up for Key’s shortcomings. Amazon’s Key needs a separate camera installed for it to function efficiently. Since Ring’s security system already has a built-in camera, Amazon may no longer need to require a separate camera if it were to integrate Ring with Key.

Spokespersons from both Amazon and Ring have already confirmed the $1 billion deal between the two companies. This is a huge deal considering that Ring was last valued at $760 million. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Amazon and Ring are working together. Amazon has already partnered with the security company in the past via Alexa Fund, a fund that makes Amazon invest in companies that create products with support for Alexa, as pointed out by Android Police.

Aside from the benefit of integration though, Amazon’s latest acquisition also fuels the company’s ongoing battle with Google in the connected home market. The Mountain View giant is apparently selling a line of Nest security products. Plus, Google also has its own voice assistant and smart speakers that are competing with Alexa and the Amazon Echo speakers.