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01
Ring sees the zone
Frames are checked against the zone you drew. The answer is CLEAR, NOT CLEAR or UNKNOWN, timestamped, and it expires after 90 seconds.
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02
Alexa tells the household
About 8 minutes out, Alexa says what is in the way and offers the one thing that helps.
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03
Devices help, with your yes
The pet door goes come-in-only, yard lights come on at dusk so the camera can see, and the sprinkler waits. Each one restores itself after the drone has left.
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04
The carrier gets one bit
At T−60 s the carrier sees HOLD with a reason code, or NO_ADVISORY. It never receives video. After the drop, a Ring frame becomes the proof-of-drop receipt.
Ring × drone delivery
Your Ring camera checks the drop zone before the drone arrives.
Alexa tells you what is in the way. Your pet door, yard lights and sprinkler help clear the spot, with your yes. The carrier gets a HOLD if it is not clear.
Runs in your browser. No login, no token.
Backyard Cam
Drone 8:00 away
Checking
Alexa
“Heads up: your drone delivery is about 8 minutes away, and there's a dog in the drop zone.”
Not nowYes
Delivery
- Drop zone
- Checking
- Pet door
- normal
- Carrier
- waiting
- Holds
- 0 / 3
Delivered inside the drop zone
Proof-of-drop saved
Proof-of-drop saved
Nobody checks the drop zone before the drone shows up.
“If your dogs are in the backyard, bring them in.”
Keep “people, pets, vehicles, and objects taller than 5 feet … at least 10 feet away from the selected delivery point.”
If anyone runs through the zone, the drone aborts and the item goes by ground instead.
Packages have ended up in pools and ponds.
Drop points are chosen remotely from maps. The drone sees the spot for a few seconds from about 13 ft up.
A Ring camera has watched that same patch of ground for months. It knows the dog is out right now, that a patio umbrella appeared yesterday, and where the pool is. DropZone uses that before the drone arrives, while you can still do something about it.
How it works
From T−8 minutes to the drop.
Replay
Open the replay
Four deliveries, one backyard.
NOT CLEAR
Dog in the zone, then a kid at T−1 min
Pet door goes come-in-only. The carrier gets a HOLD.
Video is end-to-end encryptedUNKNOWN
Camera can't see
UNKNOWN, never CLEAR. The drone flies exactly as it would today.
Zone audit
Pool right next to the drop point
The audit warns and suggests a safer spot. Proof-of-drop catches the box by the pool.
CLEAR
Dusk, sprinklers due mid-drop
With your yes the yard lights come on and the next sprinkler run is paused.
The app
Make your yard drone-ready.
- Save your drop spotsMark them on your camera view, like saved addresses.
- Get a heads-up in time“Drone in 8 min, the dog is in the drop zone.”
- Your drone partner waits if it's busyThey only ever get “hold” or nothing. Never video.
Safety and privacy
It can ask the drone to wait.
It can ask the drone to wait.
It can never tell it to land.
If DropZone is down, slow or unsure, the carrier does exactly what it does today.
"advice": "HOLD","authorises_drop": false,"hold_seconds": 60
Advisory only
The carrier endpoint returns HOLD or NO_ADVISORY, and authorises_drop is always false. Holds are capped at 3. The aircraft's own detect-and-avoid stays in charge.
CLEARNOT CLEARUNKNOWN
UNKNOWN is first-class
Offline camera, encrypted feed, an error, a stale frame or no zone: the answer is UNKNOWN, never CLEAR.
persondogvehiclefacesplates
Labels only
No face matching, no tracking across locations, no plates. The carrier gets reason codes, never images.
Your yes first
The pet door refuses to change without your explicit yes, and restores itself after the drop or after 15 minutes.
Data minimisation
In the browser path, frames are analysed on the device and never leave it. The server keeps only the latest verdict, in memory.
Carrier-neutral
It watches your own yard, not any carrier. It works with any drone operator and monitors no Amazon service's availability or performance.
For delivery partners
One small, read-only contract.
Poll it before the drop. It can ask for a delay. It can never authorise a landing.
- Two answers. HOLD with reason codes such as PERSON_IN_ZONE, or NO_ADVISORY.
- Fails open to today. CLEAR and UNKNOWN both map to NO_ADVISORY.
- Bounded. Every advisory carries
observed_atandvalid_until. Holds are capped. - No media. No images, no video, no identities cross the boundary.
{
"schema": "dropzone-plus/advisory@1",
"advice": "HOLD",
"authorises_drop": false,
"reason_codes": ["PERSON_IN_ZONE"],
"hold_seconds": 60,
"zone_status": "NOT_CLEAR",
"delivery_ref": "SIM-OLCKRQ"
}
What's real and what's demo
Real
- Zone logic: CLEAR, NOT CLEAR, UNKNOWN, expiry and zone audit
- Advisory API,
GET /api/v1/advisory - Object detection in the browser (TensorFlow.js COCO-SSD)
- Ring Partner API in live mode: discovery, history, snapshots, live view
- Ring webhook HMAC verification
Demo
- Ring webhook events
- Replay yard, actors and scripted detections
- Alexa+ add-on utterances, also exposed via MCP
- Smart pet door, yard lights and sprinkler
- Delivery partner linking (Amazon Prime Air, Wing, Zipline, Flytrex, Manna): no live integration, not affiliated
- Drone carrier consuming the advisory
DropZone is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Ring, Amazon or any drone operator.
Built on
The Ring Partner API.
Live mode talks to it from a small zero-dependency Node server. The token never reaches the browser.
Open source, MIT licensed.
Run it locally in replay mode with one command, or point live mode at our open-source mock of the Ring Partner API when you don't have a token.