To do the latter, go into the Control Center, scroll down to Neighbors, and click to disable the service. To distance yourself from Neighbors, you could simply refrain from posting, turn off all of its notifications, or disable Neighbors completely.
What we don’t like about NeighborsĮven though Ring claims that Neighbors is an “opt-in” program, in reality you're automatically enrolled when you sign up for a Ring account-and you have to do that to install or use a Ring device, such as a doorbell camera, a security system, or even a pathway light. This map shows every police and fire department that participates in the Neighbors program, where they are located, when they joined, and how many requests they’ve publicly posted to users in the most recent quarter. To find out if your local police department is part of the Neighbors program, go into the Control Center in the Ring app, click on Public Safety, and scroll down to View Active Agency map. There are no actual stats to show whether these types of devices lead to more arrests, but Neighbors does provide police and fire departments a seamless way to broadcast information about crucial safety issues-such as fires, car accidents, or police activity-to an entire community. “Any time, in any type of criminal case, if we can get photos or video, that’s a huge advantage,” she said. Robin Tillett, public relations and information manager for the Lakeland Police Department in Lakeland, Florida, said in an interview that Ring and other citizen cameras provide real value to law enforcement.
It also lets you see posts from other users as well as from municipal authorities. Ring Neighbors allows you to share security-related events (including videos your security camera recorded) to the timeline. In some ways, Neighbors is similar to the social app Nextdoor, encouraging users to report Safety, Unexpected Activity, Crime and Lost Pet alerts, as well as when you spot a Neighborly Moment (but you can customize your feed so you see only the info that interests you). Its social-app-like feed provides real-time crime and safety alerts from both your neighbors and local police and fire departments in a convenient, helpful way. Neighbors can be a great service for anyone who has concerns about crime in their area, be it petty or grand.
You do not have to share photos or video to create a Neighbors post. Once you create a post, it shows up in two spots in the app: on a map of the designated area and in a timeline, along with photos and video, if you share those as well.
According to Ring’s terms of service, users should only post about crime, safety, unusual activity, and lost pets, but are also encouraged to include acts of kindness. Posts you make to the Neighbors app remain anonymous.
However, you don’t need any Ring devices to use Neighbors, because the company also offers a standalone Neighbors app for iOS and Android devices.
Neighbors is built into the Ring app, which you use with Amazon’s Ring doorbells, Ring cameras, the Ring Alarm system, and even Ring Smart Lights. Neighbors is Ring’s free, app-based neighborhood watch feature that alerts you to crime and safety events in a radius up to 5 miles around your home. Here’s what we still consider to be the good, the bad, and the questionable practices surrounding Neighbors and Ring, which currently hold top spots in our home security systems guide and our smart outdoor lighting guide. Since this article was first published, Ring has responded by making substantial changes to Neighbors works, specifically how police and the public interact. We thoroughly investigated Ring’s policies and partnerships, and spoke with Ring officials as well as several partners from across the country to vet Neighbors’s and Ring’s policies, and we will continue to keep up with them. We share our readers’ concerns and skepticism over some of the company’s practices and claims. Specifically, the internet has been abuzz over Amazon’s decision to work with law enforcement, which allows agencies to push emergency information out to users via Neighbors, but also can provide a direct feed of public user activity to connected police departments. Over the past few years, a rash of news stories have focused on Neighbors, a feature that’s part of the Ring ecosystem. Security cameras and doorbell cameras can make people feel safer, but they also raise privacy concerns.