Familiar Faces (beta)

Familiar Faces ¹ uses advanced intelligence to help you get personalized alerts when your camera recognizes people you know. For example, instead of seeing "Person at Front Door" you'll see "Chris at Front Door". Your camera learns to recognize friends, family, and frequent visitors over time. You can turn alerts on or off for each Familiar Face, allowing you to focus on what matters.

Eligibility and requirements

Familiar Faces is available on 2K and 4K resolution devices and select HD 1080p devices.

• Compatible 1080p devices include Video Doorbell (2nd Gen), Video Doorbell 2, Video Doorbell 3, Video Doorbell 3 Plus, Battery Doorbell, Battery Doorbell Plus, Battery Doorbell Pro, Wired Doorbell Pro, Outdoor Cam, Spotlight Cam Plus Plug-in, Floodlight Cam Wired Plus, Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), and Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam.
• Familiar Faces is not compatible with the Ring Car Cam, Ring’s end-to-end video encryption feature, or Ring Edge.
• This feature requires a Ring AI Pro or Ring Trial subscription.
• Available in the United States and Canada.
  • Not available for United States customers in Illinois, Texas, and Portland, Oregon, or Canadian customers in Quebec, due to specific legislation.

Learn more about end-to-end encryption.

Learn more about Ring Edge.

Understanding recognition accuracy

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

• Distance from camera:

  Depending on conditions such as lighting, higher-resolution cameras (2K and 4K) can generally recognize people at up to 9 to 13 ft (3 to 4 m), while standard HD 1080p cameras have a more limited range of around 6 ft (2 m).
• Device height

  : For best results, mount your doorbell 4 ft (1.2 m) above the ground. Cameras mounted higher around your property will have a reduced recognition range, so people will only be recognized when they approach closer to the camera.
• Partially-covered faces:

  Face masks, sunglasses, helmets, or other accessories can block facial features.
• Poor lighting conditions:

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

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

Setting up and using Familiar Faces

When your camera detects a face, it captures the person and adds them to your Familiar Faces library.

• You can add names to faces in the Familiar Faces profile, and those names will appear in your Alerts, Timeline, and Event History.
• Only the Ring account owner can set up and manage Familiar Faces.
• Shared Users will see Familiar Faces names in alerts but cannot manage the feature.

Important note: Familiar Faces uses facial recognition to identify people and personalize your Ring experience. It is recommended to notify people you choose to save as Familiar Faces. Some laws also require you to get explicit 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 disabled by default and can be enabled or disabled for each of your Ring devices at any time. If you set up a new device, you will need to enable Familiar Faces for that device.

To turn on Familiar Faces in the Ring app:

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.
2. Tap the menu (☰).
3. Tap

   AI Features

   .
4. If prompted, read and then consent to using AI features.
5. Tap

   Turn on All

   to enable the feature for all devices, or tap

   Customize

   to enable specific features.
6. Tap

   Manage People

   to view your Familiar Faces library.
7. Tap the

   gear-shaped icon

   at the upper-right of the Familiar Faces library to manage devices.

Saving Familiar Faces

With Familiar Faces enabled, if a person comes within the range of your camera and their face is clearly visible, they will be automatically detected and added to your Familiar Faces library. You can name them from:

• Your Familiar Faces library:

  Browse all detected unfamiliar profiles and add names to those you know.
• A video in Event History or Timeline:

  When you view a video with a detected face, select

  Name this person

  .

To name a Familiar Face from your library:

1. Tap the menu (☰).
2. Tap

   AI Features

   .
3. In the

   Familiar Faces

   section, tap

   Manage People

   .
4. Select a profile.
5. Tap

   Name this person.

Merging Familiar Faces

To merge duplicate profiles of the same person from your library:

1. Go to your

   Familiar Faces

   library to select a profile.
2. Tap

   Name this person

   and begin typing a name.
3. As you type, the app will show you existing Familiar Faces.
4. Select the existing profile you want to merge with.
5. Confirm the profile merge when the prompt appears.
   • Ring selects the best images for recognition after profiles merge.

Managing photos in a profile

You can delete a photo from a profile or move it to keep recognition accurate. This is helpful if a profile contains photos of different people.

To manage photos of faces from your Familiar Faces library:

1. Go to your

   Familiar Faces

   library

   to select a profile.
2. Tap the

   pencil-shaped icon

   to select photos you want to manage.
3. After selecting the photos, tap

   This is not [Name]

   .

The below options will be available:

• Name this person

  : Tap this to move the photo to an existing profile or create a new one.
• Delete from profile:

  Tap to delete the photo.

Deleting Familiar Faces

Keep your library organized and make room for new people. You can delete any profile from your library at any time. If you've reached the 50-profile limit, deleting existing profiles will free up space for new faces.

To delete a Familiar Face from your library:

1. Go to your

   Familiar Faces

   library

   to select a profile.
2. Tap the

   Delete

   icon in the top right.

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

Managing alerts for Familiar Faces

Choose which Familiar Faces you want to be notified about. Turn alerts on to know who has arrived or turn alerts off for Familiar Faces to reduce everyday alerts.

To manage Familiar Face alerts in the Ring app:

1. Open the Ring app to the main dashboard.
2. Tap the menu (☰).
3. Tap

   AI Features

   .
4. In the

   Familiar Faces

   section, tap

   Manage People

   .
5. Tap the alerts toggle for any Familiar Face profile.

When alerts are on: Your device sends a personalized alert with the person's name and camera when they're recognized. For example, "Chris at Front Door."

When alerts are off: Your device does not send an alert. The event is saved to your Event History and Timeline with the person's name displayed.

For unrecognized people: You'll receive a generic Person alert if the person cannot be identified due to distance, lighting, or angle. This alert might occasionally be sent for people with alerts off.

Facial recognition results might vary, and misidentification can occur. For maximum security and to ensure you don't miss important events, consider keeping alerts on for all people.

Alerts for multiple people

Your camera sends one alert when it recognizes a Familiar Face with alerts on.

• Additional notifications are not sent if another person appears a few seconds later.
• Only the name of the first recognized Familiar Face will be displayed in alerts, with additional recognized people being displayed in the Event History and Timeline details.

Filtering videos by Familiar Faces

You can filter Event History to quickly find all videos of your Familiar Faces.

To filter videos using Familiar Faces in the Ring app:

1. From the Dashboard, tap the

   History

   tile.
2. Tap the

   People

   filter.
3. Select one or more Familiar Face profiles to filter your videos.
   • You can combine multiple filters to narrow your search.

Smart Alerts and Familiar Faces

Turning on Familiar Faces automatically enables Smart Alerts to detect and recognize people. If the Smart Alerts settings are adjusted, it will affect how Familiar Faces works.

Learn more about using Smart Alerts.

• If Smart Alerts Person Recording is turned off:

  Familiar Faces will not be able to identify people, recognize faces, or send any people-related alerts.
• If Smart Alerts Person Alerts is turned off:

  Familiar Faces will still be recognized in video events, but you will not receive any alerts when people are detected.
  • You can still view recognized faces in your Event History and Timeline.

Familiar Faces Library

• Profiles and facial recognition information are encrypted and stored in the cloud, not on your Ring devices.
• When you reset or transfer a device, profiles and facial recognition information do not transfer with it.
• When you reach 50 profiles, you'll see:

  "Library Full: Delete existing profiles to add new ones."
• Unnamed profiles are automatically removed after 30 days without recognition.
• All profiles and facial recognition information are automatically deleted after 180 days of no recognition.

When you cancel your compatible Ring subscription:

• Your devices will stop recognizing people and you won't be able to add new profiles. You can still view and delete your existing profiles.
• If you resubscribe, recognition can resume using your existing saved profiles.

We are committed to responsible, trusted AI features

We are committed to ensuring we are building safe and responsible intelligent 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 might vary, and misidentification can occur. We continuously improve the technology to enhance performance.