Familiar Faces (Beta)

Familiar Faces (Beta) ¹ uses Ring Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recognize people on your 2K and 4K cameras. After you turn on Familiar Faces in your Ring app, your camera learns to recognize people over time, similar to how you recognize friends and family. When your camera sees that person again, you receive a personalized notification, such as "Chris at Front Door," instead of "There is a Person at your door." You can turn alerts on or off for familiar faces, allowing you to focus on what matters.

Eligibility and requirements¹

• Familiar Faces only works with 2K and 4K devices.
• Requires a Ring Home Premium Plan.
• Works with 24/7 Continuous Recording.

  ²
• Available in the United States and Canada. Not available in: Texas, Illinois, Portland (OR), or Quebec (Canada) due to legislation.
• Familiar Faces is not compatible with End-to-End Encryption (Ring Edge).

  Learn more about Ring Edge

  .

Understanding recognition accuracy

Familiar Faces recognition might occasionally be inaccurate. Common reasons include:

• Distance from camera:

  2K devices recognize people up to 9 ft (3m) and 4K devices up to 13 ft (4m).
• Device height:

  For the best results, doorbells should be mounted 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the ground. Cameras positioned higher than eye level can reduce recognition distance.
• Partially-covered faces:

  Hats, helmets, or scarves block facial features.
• Poor lighting conditions:

  Low light or high contrast reduce performance. Daylight produces optimal results.
• Movement patterns:

  Neighbors who move quickly or walk across the camera's view are harder to recognize. Recognition works best when neighbors walk directly toward the camera.

Setting up and using Familiar Faces

When your camera detects a face, it captures a photo and adds it to your Familiar Faces library. You can name recognized faces, so their names appear in notifications, history, and timeline. Only the Ring account Owner can set up and manage Familiar Faces. Shared Users will only see Familiar Faces names in the notification and cannot manage the feature.

Important note about consent: This feature collects biometric information to identify people. It's always a good idea to notify people you're saving as Familiar Faces. Some laws also require you to get consent from people visiting your location before turning on this feature. Please make sure to check these laws before turning on the feature.

Turning on Familiar Faces

Familiar Faces is turned off by default. You need to turn on this feature for any new 2K or 4K devices you add to your Ring account.

To turn on Familiar Faces in the Ring app:

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.

2. Tap more (•••) on the camera you want to access.

3. Tap your device's Settings.

4. Tap the

   Alert Settings

   tile.
5. Tap on

   Familiar Faces

   .
6. Select which eligible devices to turn Familiar Faces on.
7. Read the consent notice.
8. Tap

   Continue

   .

Saving Familiar Faces

When a face is detected, it will appear in your Event History and Familiar Faces library. You can name a face directly from your Event History or from the library. Once named, that person's name will appear in notifications, timeline, and Event History. Up to 50 profiles can be stored in your account, named and unnamed.

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.

2. Tap more (•••) on the camera you want to access.

3. Tap your device's Settings.

4. Tap the

   Alert Settings

   tile.
5. Under

   Familiar Faces

   , Tap

   Manage People

   .
6. Select a profile.
7. Tap

   Name this person

   to add or edit a name.

Editing Familiar Faces

You can edit the name of a Familiar Face at any time.

1. Go to the Familiar Faces library.
2. Select the profile you want to edit.
3. Tap

   Name this person

   to edit a name.

Deleting photos from profiles

You can delete photos from a profile to keep recognition accurate when the profile has multiple photos of different people.

1. Go to the Familiar Faces library.
2. Select the profile you want to edit.
3. Tap the Edit icon (pencil).
4. Select the photos you wish to delete.
5. Tap

   Delete

   and confirm that you want to delete the photos.

Merging Familiar Faces

You can merge duplicate profiles together.

1. Go to a profile you want to merge.
2. Tap

   Name this person

   and begin typing a name.
3. As you type, the app shows matching and existing Familiar Faces.
4. Select the existing profile you want to merge with.
5. Confirm the merge when prompted.
6. Ring selects the best images for recognition after profiles merge.

Deleting Familiar Faces

You can delete familiar or unnamed profiles from your library at any time. To add new faces after reaching the 50-profile limit, delete existing profiles.

1. Go to the Familiar Faces library.
2. Select the profile you want to delete.
3. Tap the delete icon in the top right.

This permanently deletes the profile, biometric information, and all images being used for recognition. When they appear in the future, you'll see Person alerts and events without their name.

Managing Familiar Faces

• Profiles and biometric information are encrypted and stored in the cloud in your account, not on devices.
• When you reset or transfer a device to a new owner, profiles and biometric information do not transfer with the device.
• When you reach 50 profiles, the app shows "Library Full: Delete existing profiles to add new ones." When you delete a profile, we delete all information related to that familiar face.
• The library automatically removes unnamed profiles after 30 days without recognition.

If you cancel your compatible Ring Home subscription:

• Your devices will stop recognizing people and you cannot add new profiles. You can still access your existing named or unnamed profiles to manage or delete them with.
• All profiles and biometric information are automatically deleted after 30 days without an eligible subscription.
• If you resubscribe within 30 days of your subscription ending, recognition starts working immediately, including saved profiles.

Managing alerts for Familiar Faces

Familiar Faces personalizes your notifications based on whom the camera recognizes at your location. When your camera detects a person, it checks your library to see if there's a match before sending you an alert. You can turn alerts on or off for each person in your library.

• Alerts ON for Familiar Faces:

  Your device sends a personalized alert with the person's name and device name, such as "Chris at Front Door."
• Alerts OFF for Familiar Faces:

  Your device does not send an alert. The video event saves to your Event History with the recognized person's name displayed.
• Unrecognized people:

  You'll receive a generic "Person" alert.

Important note: Recognition works best within 13 ft (4 m). If someone can't be identified due to distance, lighting, or angle, you will receive a normal Person alert. This alert may include people with alerts off. Facial recognition results may vary, and misidentification can occur. For maximum security and to ensure you don't miss important events, consider keeping alerts on for all people.

Smart Alerts and Familiar Faces

Your camera's alert behavior depends on how you configure your Smart Alerts and Familiar Faces settings. Learn more about using Smart Alerts.

• Person recording off for Smart Alerts:

  Familiar Faces is completely disabled on that device. Your camera won't detect or alert you about any people in video events.
• Person recording on, and person Alerts off for Smart Alerts:

  Your camera won't send alerts when it detects people. It will still recognize faces in events, and you can view them in your Event History.
• Familiar Face detection off:

  Your camera can still send alerts when it detects a person. It won't recognize or name familiar faces.

Adjusting Familiar Face alert preferences

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.

2. Tap more (•••) on the camera you want to access.

3. Tap your device's Settings.

4. Tap the

   Alert Settings

   tile.
5. Tap on

   Familiar Faces

   .
6. Tap

   Familiar Faces

   settings.
7. Select a named familiar profile and toggle Alerts on or off.

Alerts for multiple people in notifications

Your camera can recognize up to five people at a time. Your device sends an alert based on the first person it recognizes. If a neighbor with Alerts On arrives first, you get a notification. You won't get additional notifications if neighbors with Alerts Off appear later. The remaining recognized people will appear in your Event History and Timeline details.

Filtering videos by Familiar Faces

You can filter videos to quickly find all instances when a specific person was detected at your property.

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.

2. Tap the

   History

   tile.
3. Tap the

   People

   filter.
4. Select one or more Familiar Face profiles to filter your videos.
5. You can combine multiple filters to narrow your search.
6. View all events where those people were recognized.

Using Familiar Faces with AI Video Descriptions

If AI Video Descriptions is enabled, Familiar Faces works alongside it to provide more detailed notifications. To learn more about AI Video Descriptions, visit the Ring AI Video Descriptions article on Ring Help.

We are committed to Responsible, Trusted AI

We are committed to ensuring we are building safe and responsible AI-powered products and features throughout our design, development, deployment, and operation. To help ensure Familiar Faces recognizes people reliably and fairly, models are tested across diverse demographic groups including gender, ethnicity, age, and appearance variations. Recognition results may vary, and misidentification can occur. We continuously improve the technology to enhance performance.