Ring’s first smart lock can be hand-cranked when its battery dies
- ID
- 32743
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 07 Oct 2026, 10:00 PM
- Fetched
- 07 Oct 2026, 10:41 PM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/07/rings-first-smart-lock-can-be-hand-cranked-when-its-battery-dies/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 2.0
- Created
- 07 Oct 2026, 10:43 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developerssaas_founders
What happened
Ring, the Amazon-owned doorbell maker, announced its first smart lock, which adds a hand-crank power dial so a dead battery doesn't lock you out — turn the dial a few times to power the lock, then remove and recharge the battery pack. Ring's founder Jamie Siminoff said the idea came from shopping for a lock for a little-used vacation home where he expected the battery to die, and he cited worries about visiting family or friends getting stuck outside. Ring says the battery lasts about a year, the app alerts you when to charge, and entry works via fingerprint reader plus three other methods; the company says it eventually wants third-party app makers to build software for it, naming Airbnb-style code rotation as an example. No price, ship date, or API details appear in the text.
Why it matters
Almost nothing here changes what you build today: there is no price, no release date, no API, and no developer program — just a stated intention to let third parties write software for the lock later. The one transferable idea is the design pattern: a battery-dependent, app-dependent device that adds a mechanical fallback so failure degrades instead of bricking, which is worth stealing for any IoT or offline-capable product you ship. If you build access or short-term-rental software, note the Airbnb code-rotation example as a possible future integration surface, but treat it as unannounced until Ring publishes terms.
Discussion angle
Failure-mode design: Ring's answer to a dead battery is a hand crank, not a bigger battery or a cloud retry — what does 'graceful degradation' look like in the devices and services you ship, and when is a mechanical or offline fallback worth the extra hardware cost?