Ring is bringing its Neighbours community feature to the UK next month—here’s how it works, how it's different from Facebook, and how it uses video doorbells to find lost dogs

Next month, Ring is rolling out a new feature called Neighbours — a type of social platform that will let you share local information such as suspicious activity or lost items, with a customisable radius of about five miles.

Neighbours launched in the US in 2018, but this is the first time it’s been available in the UK.

You will find it within the Ring app from October 21, and anyone can join and start interacting with a local community for free — even if they don't have any Ring devices themselves.

You only need a Ring subscription if you want to join Search Party for Dogs, which is a feature that alerts you if your camera or doorbell detects a pet that has been reported missing, and lets you inform the owner privately.

We attended a launch event in London this week to learn more about Neighbours and Search Parties, and spoke to Dave Ward, International Managing Director of Ring, to find out how the company is tackling tricky issues like content moderation when running a social platform, and how Neighbours will keep discussions civil.

Search Party for Dogs Ring has developed Search Party in collaboration with rescue and rehoming charity charity Dogs Trust.

If your dog goes missing, you can create a post in Neighbours, including a photo of your pet, and users with participating doorbells and cameras will be alerted automatically if your dog is detected on their property.

The finder can then let the owner know that the dog has been spotted in a private conversation.

The owner won't be alerted automatically, and no videos or images will be shared unless the owner of the camera chooses to do so.

At the moment, the feature is specifically for dogs; there is no Search Party feature for cats.

According to Rachel Casey, Chief Operations Officer, at Dogs Trust, approximately 25,000 dogs enter local authority care in the UK each year, with only 38% being reunited with their families.

The charity hopes that Search Party will help boost that number — though Casey emphasises that it's still vital to keep your pet's microchip details updated, and ensure they have ID tags and collars for easier identification .

"We know from out surveys of the local authorities that only two thirds of the dogs that come into local authority care are actually microchipped, and only half of those actually have the right details on their microchip," Casey said at a launch event in London. (Image credit: Ring) Social platforms After the event, we spoke to Dave Ward, International Managing Director of Ring, to find out more about Neighbours, and how Ring is tackling issues like moderation when it comes to community-created content.