Tuya Smart Announces Face-Scanning Doorbell, Access Control Solutions

Another player has entered the ‘smart doorbell’ market: Tuya Smart, a firm with offices in Guangdong, Hangzhou, and California, has taken the occasion of CES 2019 to announce its AI Video Doorbell.

The doorbell uses a built-in camera to identify familiar faces that have been added to a ‘whitelist’ of authorized visitors, and can send alerts to a user’s phone when these individuals are at the door. Likewise, it can send alerts when a non-approved visitor is at the door, as well as a one-minute video recording that’s automatically triggered when the doorbell is approached. Tuya Smart says all data is processed locally on the device, helping to protect the privacy of scanned subjects.

In promoting the solution, Tuya Smart will face competition from some big names, with Google already having its own face-scanning smart doorbell on the market, and Amazon potentially looking to get into the game, too. In any case, Tuya Smart’s AI Video Doorbell is scheduled to enter mass production in May of this year.

Another Tuya Smart solution announced at CES, meanwhile, could prove more unique in its target market. Called the AI Pad, it’s a kind of sophisticated access control solution for smart buildings designed to extend biometric authentication beyond access points and to the broader building infrastructure. Offering the example of employees in an office building, Tuya Smart says that once they’re registered on the AI Pad, they can access doors, elevators, lighting, and thermostats without the need for ID cards or any other means of authentication, while anyone not on the whitelist will be automatically flagged by the system, with alerts sent to administrators.

Tuya Smart hasn’t offered a release timeline for the AI Pad, but assuming it arrives this year, it could help to establish the company as a major name in biometric access control, especially if the company is able to snag some marketshare with its new AI Video Doorbell, too.