E-commerce giant Amazon announced that it will be rolling out its new home security feature, Alexa Guard, to all Echo customers in the U.S.this week. Simply say “Alexa, I’m leaving” on your way out the door, and the Echo device will begin listening.
Alexa Guard essentially turns the Echo device into an acoustic security sensor which informs users if it detects the sound of glass breaking or a smoke or carbon monoxide detector going off inside the home. A 10-second audio clip of the sound that set Alexa Guard off will be sent to users for verification.
Amazon stated that it has worked with licensed contractors to create a wide range of different sounds for Alexa to listen for by breaking hundreds of different glass windows with different instruments.
Amazon’s new feature can also be leveraged to enable “Away Lighting,” which turns smart lights on or off, making it seem as if someone is home. Alexa uses machine learning, according to the company, which determines the proper lighting activity for a customer’s home based on lighting usage.
You also have the option to integrate Alexa Guard with alarm systems from Ring and ADT. For those who use ADT Pulse and Control security systems, you can choose to have Smart Alerts from Echo devices sent to the company’s monitoring center for further action.
“When you link Alexa Guard to a supported ADT connected security system and choose to forward Smart Alerts to ADT’s professional monitoring centers, we will use our own established protocol for determining if emergency services should be notified,” the company said in a statement.
Those who use Ring security systems can have Alexa automatically arm the users’ system when Guard is set to away mode. Users will gain quick access to the Ring app where they can request the dispatch of emergency response, only if they have professional monitoring with Ring Protect Plus.