Low-Quality Reality: On the Value of Ring Camera Footage

Images from cameras produced by the consumer surveillance company Ring exhibit a distinctive style featuring pixilation, dirty lenses, and objects distorted by the camera’s position. This article analyzes Ring’s distribution of this footage as RingTV, highlighting the ways that these images work within traditions of low-quality images in journalism and law. I argue that the ugliness of these images is mobilized by the company to suggest an intimate connection to reality as provided by the Ring camera. In this way, Ring constructs itself as an essential commodity for accessing the world, naturalizing its place as a technology in the home.