According to Reuters, Amazon is buying smart doorbell maker Ring for more than the big ‘B’. The ecommerce behemoth is expected to let Ring operate as an independent business (much like they did with Zappos and Twitch), while reaping the benefits of the company’s home-security hardware.
Last month, we reported on the doorbell wars heating up in the startup-verse. Now, the big dawgs are taking over.
A few weeks ago, the Alphabet-owned home security company, Nest Hello, announced a March ship date for their new “smart” doorbell.
Since then, Amazon has been snatching up the competition: Over the past year, they acquired Blink and a laundry list of other smart security gadgets.
The financial details of the acquisition have been vague, but if the sale price is above $1.2B (the price they paid for Zappos), then Ring will be Amazon’s second-largest acquisition ever, trailing only Whole Foods.
This is also a huge opportunity to develop Amazon’s plan to enable delivery people to leave packages inside of homes and buildings.
And of course, this move just poured gasoline on the fiery fight among companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple to turn “dumb” homes into “smart” homes.