The Ring Car Cam is now available to order for $200

More than two years after announcing it, the Ring Car Cam is now available for preorder. Starting today, January 5th, you can order the company’s first dashboard security camera at Amazon.com or Ring.com for $199.99, a savings of $50 over the regular price. It will ship to US customers beginning February 15th.

The Ring Car Cam is the video doorbell company’s first foray into security away from the home. Featuring dual-facing cameras that can record inside and outside of the car, both when it’s in motion and parked, the Ring Car Cam also has a microphone and speaker as well as sensors to detect events and motion in and around the car.

Video recording can happen automatically while driving or on demand. You can pull up a live view from the camera when you aren’t in the car if you pay for a Ring Protect Go plan, which costs $6 per month, or $60 per year, for LTE connectivity.

The subscription also adds real-time alerts in the Ring app for events and cloud storage of videos for up to 180 days. The camera has local storage, accessible when it’s connected to Wi-Fi — say, when parked in your driveway or connected through your phone’s hotspot.

The Ring Car Cam works with a Traffic Stop feature where the command “Alexa, record” will quickly start a recording during a stop or after a fender bender, for example. However, that is the extent of any Alexa integration; the voice assistant isn’t built in.

The device is powered by the car battery via the OBD-II port. It attaches to your windshield and comes with a tool to help you secure the cable neatly between the windshield and the dashboard.

The camera works with the Ring app for viewing live and recorded video from its two cameras. You can also use its built-in microphone and speaker for two-way talk from the car or to communicate with anyone who is in your car when you’re not there.

The camera flashes an LED light when it’s recording, and there is a physical shutter the driver can close at any time to shut off all interior video and audio. The Ring Car Cam also supports optional video end-to-end encryption. 

The arrival of the Ring Car Cam two years after it was first announced means there’s some hope that the other missing-in-action Ring camera — the Always Home Cam, a surveillance drone for your home — may still make an appearance. It was announced in 2020, and despite Ring opening preorders via invitations in 2021, we’re still waiting to see one in action. Ring CTO Josh Roth assured The Verge that while the complexity and challenges of building an in-house flying autonomous vehicle are enormous, “it will come out at some point.”