Randi and her husband Jake purchased a Ring Floodlight Cam last year, after a break-in at their houseboat in Amsterdam. It brought them not only peace of mind, but also a global fan base that now keeps up to date with everything their adventurous pet cat gets up to.
This is their story.
Knocking on the doors
"We were going to a Halloween party in our local pub,'' Randi recalls. "In the evening I came home, and when I approached, the door was broken into. Our home had been robbed and everything was taken." Randi still remembers it vividly. "It was kind of one of the worst things we've ever been through", she says. "Because I've never had a break-in before."
After the break-in, Randi and Jake went to see if their neighbours had spotted anything. "The first thing in the morning, we went out knocking on the doors to talk to all of our neighbours to see if anybody had seen anything." Unfortunately for them, that was not the case.
One of their neighbours, however, had a Ring Floodlight Cam, and the couple decided to follow his lead.
"So I came back home and told my husband: we need to get a Ring camera, because it was so clear, and it could've maybe have caught the people, but we didn't have it."
Online community
Although Randi and Jake initially got Ring for security reasons, the device spotted something else as well: their cat Puko. "We would be getting the notifications, and it happened to be cats, so we got to watch Puko and we'd see Puko do things like jumping on the tree or chasing bugs."
Randi and Jake now run a YouTube channel that documents all of Puko's adventures. "I thought it was so funny, so I just downloaded the footage from the Ring app, found this easy video editor, started learning how to do these little story lines, and that's the beginning of Puko's Porch - a YouTube page for my cat Puko, made from the Ring videos he and his pals make every night. Due to Covid-19, I had lots of time to learn how to edit videos".
The videos of Puko and his friends have now created an online community.
"Puko has people in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, China and the US watching", Randi says. "So that's really cool, building that community. We're not able to travel right now. So being able to connect with some of these people across the world is kind of letting you have that moment of seeing things in other countries."
Peace of mind
Besides a global fan base, Randi and Jake now feel more secure than ever before. "It was such a peace of mind to go on our holiday trip in December to Thailand and not worry about the boat, as we could watch it all."
"However, that is not my story. My story is what I have found to be the best part of the Ring camera, which is watching our neighbourhood cats on my porch!"
Due to this year's events, Randi and Jake are now spending most of their time on their Amsterdam houseboat, which has been made more enjoyable by the adventures of Puko. "Every morning I wake up with my coffee and watch the Amsterdam cat action occur outside my door. Who needs real housewives and Kardashians, when you have cats?"