Ring will unlock a hidden feature in two of its top security cameras

Two of Ring’s best home security cameras—the Ring Spotlight Cam Pro and the Ring Floodlight Cam Pro—are getting a surprise upgrade to 2K video resolution.

Most Ring home security cameras, including those two, are—or at least have been—limited to video resolution of 1080p. The home security company has seemed much more interested in bringing features like the radar motion detection that powers its higher-end cameras’ Birds Eye View feature than boosting video resolution.

So, Ring’s announcement at CES that a simple firmware update will enable these ostensibly 1080p cameras to start capturing video in 2K resolution left us wondering how that could be possible. Well, it turns out both cameras, introduced in 2022 and 2021 respectively, were manufactured with 2K image sensors at the outset. Ring has simply been throttling them to 1920 x 1080 pixels since launch.

Ring

When asked to confirm that the cameras will deliver 2560 x 1440 pixels, and that they’re not just performing pixel doubling or some form of faux 2K, a Ring spokesperson said “These products use a sensor that supports up to 2K video resolution” and that “the videos will natively record and stream in 2K,” which the spokesperson defined as 2560 x 1440 pixels.

As to why this performance wasn’t enabled when the products were first shipped, the spokesperson said “We introduce features when we feel they’re ready to deliver the best end-to-end customer experience, which in this case included ensuring optimization of Wi-Fi data consumption, battery life, and streaming performance.”

So, if you’re using either of these cameras and plan to take advantage of their native capabilities when the firmware update begins rolling out on January 8, you might want to consider upgrading your Wi-Fi router if it’s older than Wi-Fi 5. “We’ve worked to optimize aspects like end-to-end latency and Wi-Fi data consumption,” according to the Ring spokesperson, “but customers will still see higher data consumption with 2K.”

We awarded favorable reviews to both the Ring Spotlight Cam Pro and the Ring Floodlight Cam Pro when they were first released, so this update should render them even better values.