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In May, police in Hammond, Indiana, got a suspicious-person alert from a concerned resident. She could see a man, she told officers, through her Ring smart doorbell.

The resident had already sent police another message, along with footage from her internet-connected video doorbell, about an earlier incident. Now the resident was even more frightened, having watched a new incident unfold on her phone through a live feed from her Ring app.  

She sent police the video recorded from the doorbell. Police immediately knew the man wasn't a criminal.

"It was one of our detectives. He was going there to interview the person for whatever the situation was," said Steve Kellogg, a public information officer for Hammond Police, adding that the cop was wearing plain clothes but had a badge around his neck. The badge was out of the Ring camera's line of sight, but the resident would have spotted it immediately had she gone to the door, the officer added.

The incident is among the growing number of false alarms involving Ring cameras, which have spread around the country as police departments partner with Amazon's smart doorbell company. False alarm calls are nothing new, but police say the Ring doorbells make it easier for citizens to report anything they find suspicious and send video for law enforcement to review, CNET reports.