Fulu is urging developers to create a method that enables users to store Ring doorbell footage locally on their devices. Amid criticism over Ring’s Search Party feature, a new initiative is encouraging developers to transfer Ring footage from Amazon’s cloud to users’ personal devices. The Fulu Foundation, co-founded by YouTuber Louis Rossmann, offers a $10,000 bounty for those who can integrate Ring doorbells with a local PC or server, cutting off Amazon server access.
Currently, Ring users must subscribe to store recordings on Amazon’s cloud. While Ring Edge offers local storage, it’s exclusive to Ring Alarm Pro and requires a subscription. Videos can be secured with end-to-end encryption, meaning they’re not accessible to Ring or third parties, but they’re still stored on Amazon’s servers.
Fulu aims to give users more control over their footage after concerns about Ring’s Super Bowl ad promoting Search Party, an AI feature using doorbells to find lost dogs and potentially combat crime later. Devices from Eufy, Reolink, and Aqara offer local storage without replacing hardware, as stated by Fulu cofounder Kevin O’Reilly.
O’Reilly notes that ideally, users could modify software to direct footage to their computers or servers, yet bounty solutions are constrained by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, making it a copyright crime to distribute tools circumventing such restrictions.
The bounty will be awarded to the first who meets Fulu’s criteria by integrating Ring doorbells from 2021 or later with local servers, disconnecting from Amazon’s servers. The bounty begins at $10,000, doubling with donor contributions up to $10,000.