His wifi-enabled doorbells are in over 10 million homes across America, and his startup was acquired for an estimated $1 billion by Amazon in 2018 — but Jamie Siminoff, now vice president of Amazon’s home security unit, keeps ringing in new tech.
The founder and former CEO of Ring is innovating existing hardware, chiefly by implementing new AI features that recognize pets and faces.
“We can get a lot out of our technology, especially when it’s [folded] into the fabric of the home,” Siminoff, 49, told NYNext. “This isn’t just technology for technology’s sake.”
In September, the company unveiled its first ever 4k video camera and a new feature called Search Party that implements artificial intelligence to help families track down lost pets.
If a dog runs away, Ring users can upload a picture of the pet and send it to all the other Ring cameras in the neighborhood. Search Party then combs through a cumulative library of neighborhood content and identifies sightings of an animal whose appearance matches that of the uploaded picture.
Users must opt in to the feature and those who choose not to are anonymized.
“Before this, the most advanced thing we could do — with all the technology we have — is drive around and yell for the dog,” Siminoff said. “I think, if you can allow people to be part of the solution, to be part of helping make neighborhoods safer, while still protecting their privacy, that’s the key balance.”
Another new tool, Familiar Faces, operates in a similar vein.
The system can now identify family members and frequent visitors, allowing users to fine-tune who and what they’re notified about.
“Before, Ring would send you a motion alert when you’re the one walking into your front door … it didn’t really feel smart,” Siminoff said. “We’re continuing to figure out how [to make the] technology work [best].”
He’s been figuring it out for about a dozen years now — Ring wasn’t a success from the start.
Siminoff began developing the earliest prototype circa 2011. At the time, he was purely solving a problem of his own: When working in the garage, he couldn’t hear his doorbell.
“I looked online for a Wi-Fi doorbell, [thinking] I have this screen in my pocket and there must be [something that can connect] to it,” he said.
When he couldn’t find anything of the sort, he jerry-rigged one together himself.
In September 2013, Siminoff took his doorbell-camera, then called DoorBot, on to Shark Tank with high hopes.
“We were negative in the bank account when I went on the show, I was certain Mark Cuban was going to put money in,” Siminoff recalled.
But Cuban was the first one out — and all of his fellow Sharks promptly followed suit.
“I died for a split second — I felt rejected,” Siminoff said.
His luck came two months later, in November, when the episode aired just before Black Friday.
With those 12 minutes on ABC, the entire market materialized. In the ensuing nine months, he reimagined the doorbell and rebranded it as Ring. Sales more than exceeded expectations.
“We had shown the world this product and someone was going to copy us,” Siminoff said. “If we didn’t [perfect it], we’d be leapfrogged.”
This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC’s power players (and those who aspire to be).
The mad dash to market, the vindication of millions of purchases, the billion dollar acquisition and more are the subject of Siminoff’s new book, “DingDing Dong: How Ring Went From Shark Tank Reject To Everyone’s Front Door.”
“People who saw me on Shark Tank, they kind of joined me on the journey,” Siminoff told NYNext. “It’s a story of the American dream and grit — how entrepreneurs can make something happen.”
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