Normally we would expect no subscription means no video uploaded, but it doesn't HAVE to mean that. IF you distill it, it really only means the Ring doorbell owner doesn't get access to any video or features without paying.

There's no reason they, however, won't still derive value from it without a subscription by recording and reselling that data somehow. That's probably how they got this footage. All the subscription does it help subsidize their surveillance network and let you use it a little bit.

Even if it isn't uploading, the hardware must have local storage. It may be small and persistently overwritten, but if the power was severed, then the last data on that drive would be the last thing written before the power was cut.

I thought they just give you reduced storage on the free tier? If so, then its obvious that it is still uploading motion related events.

> She apparently didn't have a subscription so it shouldn't have been uploading anywhere..

Nest cameras upload event footage even without a subscription.

It's not a secret. It's a selling point for the devices.

Or... yet another full-on spying device. Like all phones, like all modern TVs, smart speakers/home systems, cars, anything electronic capable of recording its environment is doing it, for the sole purpose of uploading it to be stored and analyzed.

There are some limits of course but they are mostly technological, but this ain't some notification trickle but full pictures when you expect zero, zilch, nothing.

I'd never install such device at home, added value is dubious at best for my family life and this is exactly the type of shit I would expect to be happening in it, regardless of brand or country of origin. If it connects it sends. Its sad state of things in 2026 but thats reality right now.