Just call added end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to a select few of its smart home cameras, enabling videos recorded with your Ring devices with an extra layer of security. This still doesn’t make us keen on Ring devices, exactly, given everything the problems the platform has to experience, but it is a function worth knowing if you already are use one Ring doorbell or camera.
Ring videos are encrypted while being uploaded to Ring’s cloud servers, but this new feature secures them with an additional AES 128-bit encryption layer that can only be decrypted and viewed on a mobile device registered in Ring’s E2EE program. (You can read more about Ring’s E2EE policy in a recently published white paper on the position.)
E2EE can prevent outsiders from intercepting and viewing videos while they are being recorded or sent to your devices; even Ring cannot decrypt them. However, Ring’s E2EE also disables a handful of user-side features, including motion verification and the ability to view Ring’s camera live feeds on an Amazon Echo Show or Fire TV device. Your recorded videos are more secure, but you may lose real-time playback and cloud monitoring capabilities just as important as the extra layer of encryption that E2EE adds.
If you’re okay with the tradeoffs, enabling Ring’s new E2EE is easy – as long as you have the right hardware. E2EE is Only available on a handful of devices at launch:
- Video Doorbell Pro
- Video doorbell Elite
- Floodlight Cam
- Indoor camera
- Spotlight Cam wired
- Spotlight Cam Mount
- Stick Up Cam Plug In
- Stick Up Cam Elite
More support may be added in the future, but for now, you’ll need one of those devices to use E2EE. You also need the latest version of the Ring app any Android or iOS device you want to register. If you meet these requirements, you can enable E2EE in the Ring app:
- Open the Ring app.
- Go to Control center> Video encoding> Advanced settings.
- Select Video end-to-end encryption.
- Tap the slider to enable the function, then tap “Get started.”
- Follow the in-app instructions to enroll your account, mobile devices, and Ring cameras for end-to-end encryption.
- You can disable E2EE at any time by pressing the “Video end-to-end encryption” slider.
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You will be prompted to generate a password during setup – don’t lose it! It cannot be recovered and all encrypted videos you have will be lost. You must start over with a different mobile device to use E2EE again.