Furious customers blast Amazon as an outage knocks Ring doorbells, baby monitors, and Alexa products

Publish date: 2024-06-19
2021-12-07T20:25:31Z

Amazon Ring users online are fuming as they lost access to home monitoring services during the company's major outage. 

Amazon's web-hosting subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, suffered a major outage on Tuesday, impacting a number of services that rely on the company's servers.

The outage extended to popular Amazon services, like the Ring smart home system and Alexa speakers. 

"Can't listen to Amazon Music. My Ring Doorbell doesn't work. Can't control my lights with Alexa," one user tweeted

Ring users said issues with the home monitoring service has resulted in the inability to disable alarms, monitor children, and watch out for intruders. 

"I'm unable to access any of my cameras, is there a nationwide outage? I'm literally relying on my cameras to keep me safe because I'm on bed rest," one user said in a tweet.

"How the hell are we supposed to disarm our alarms. Or monitor anything at all," another tweeted.

—ken emerson (@kemerson08) December 7, 2021—Buff. (@GoBUFFUrself) December 7, 2021

The outage began around 11:30 a.m. ET. As of about 2 p.m. ET, Amazon said its technical teams identified the root cause of the outage and are working on a solution, according to its website. Amazon added some services have began experiencing partial recovery.

"Most pathetic service," on Twitter user said. "How can a doorbell or a security camera be down for several hours, and still no signs of resumption!"

—Manav Bhardwaj 🇮🇳 (@ManavBhardwaj) December 7, 2021

"Eek, just in time for my newly-in-beds triplet toddlers' nap," another user said. "Now I have no idea what they're doing up there."

—Wildernest 🌲 (@WildernestMA) December 7, 2021

Many Ring doorbell users said they were concerned their packages would get stolen during the systems outage. 

"What's going on ring? App down, can't login, can't see what's going on outside my door," a user tweeted. "I got packages coming and I'm not about to get caught lacking." 

"Great the one day we had a package taken from our porch...seriously," tweeted another Ring customer. "Hopefully the camera caught it."

—The King (@TheKingHasRisen) December 7, 2021—Bob Stuart (@maddscot) December 7, 2021

"Do we have an update? [My Ring] has been down for a few hours now and I'm expecting packages. Some of which need to be signed for today," another Twitter user said. 

—Rory Philbin (@RoryPhilbin1) December 7, 2021—Tommy Harpel (@FocusTom) December 7, 2021

"We are aware of a service interruption impacting Ring," the company said in a statement. "We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding."

Amazon was not immediately available for additional comment.

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