TechGadgetsNewsRing confirms its camera drone won’t have manual controls after crashing on CBS NewsThe Ring Drone Cam will entirely rely on AI autopilot to fly around your home.The Ring Drone Cam will entirely rely on AI autopilot to fly around your home.by Jess WeatherbedNov 12, 2026, 11:12 AM UTCShareGiftPhoto by Victoria Barrios / The VergeJess Weatherbed is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.When (or if) Ring’s security camera drone flies into our homes in January, you won’t get the option to pilot it yourself. The Ring Drone Cam relies entirely on an “AI Pilot” system to follow pre-programmed routes and navigate autonomously around obstacles, with no manual control option available — and an embarrassing demonstration with CBS News might reveal why.The video, broadcast on CBS Mornings and published on Threads, shows Ring founder Jamie Siminoff allowing technology reporter Jo Ling Kent to manually fly an early version of the drone via a mobile app with integrated controls.Ling Kent: “Can I control it?”Siminoff: “Yeah, so we can load manual controls.”The demo then shows the drone crashing twice while being manually piloted. In the first instance, Ring reportedly told CBS News that the drone’s collision avoidance technology malfunctioned, and declined to share the video recorded by the drone prior to crashing.
CBS News caught the second crash on camera, with the footage showing the drone colliding with a wall after failing to respond to manual controls. According to Siminoff, this occurred because the drone lost internet connectivity — which it also relies on to fly autonomously.“If it loses connectivity, it’s supposed to stop and land,” Siminoff said in the video. “It did not there.”Ring declined to show us the app in our own demonstration of the Drone Cam, and said it only works on pre-programmed flight paths. It seems that while manual flight controls were included at some stage of development, Ring won’t be making the feature available to customers when the Drone Cam launches in January.“We explored a lot of features throughout the development, but autonomous flight to patrol points using the AI Pilot is the best customer benefit and experience,” Ring spokesperson Sam McGee said in a statement to The Verge. Ring didn’t respond to our question regarding whether the decision to not include manual controls was made following the CBS News demo.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Jess WeatherbedDronesGadgetsNewsSecuritySmart HomeTechMost PopularNvidia is reportedly preparing to fire Jensen HuangNot everyone is loving their new iPhone DuoI asked every TV manufacturer 17 questions about how they spy on youHands on with Home Assistant’s new ‘smart home multi-tool’Ocarina of Time is even better if you use a smartphone appAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad
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