Alexa is more vital than ever during coronavirus, and Amazon knows it

Amazon’s Alexa is more relevant than before Coronavirus Ubiquitous epidemic.

The hardware of the giant retailer hit that point with a hammer and reached that point on Thursday Amazon’s fall product launch event, Emphasizing the value of smart home facilities for those of us who are stuck at home. And they doubled down on gear and services to entertain us, help us connect and keep an eye on our homes.

Amazon hardware chief Dave Limp said in an interview after the event, “Nobody feared an epidemic and we certainly weren’t planning for it.” “But I think our homes are now our offices, they are our schools, they are our movie theaters. A lot of our products have become even more applicable in this environment.”

Apparently, Amazon is fine with this development because it keeps people hooked for its portfolio of services and products. Limp said the way video streams are viewed billions of hours each month through Amazon’s Fire TV devices. The same is said for reading books on Kindle gadgets and listening to music on echo speakers. Toss on all the goods people are buying online on Amazon.com, and quarantine has worked quite well for the company.

Some might say that the growing influence of Alexa is a bad thing. It is disturbing that one of the largest and wealthiest corporations on the planet has so many connections to our home life, it also gives us the ability to collect a lot of data about us. There are many security issues – such as Amazon-brand Ring camera Being kidnapped by a hacker – to give consumers a break.

But there are also reasons to be grateful. These types of products will not give a place to see loved ones in person, but they are helpful to ensure when we have to remote.

Ultimately, consumers will decide how much or how little Alexa wants in their lives. If history provides any clues, they want too much, especially epidemics showing interest in videoconferencing, security systems and streaming services.

“The epidemic brought everything into Amazon’s business model,” said Brett Kinsella, founder of voice tech site VoiceBoat.i. “If you look at our time and you react to customer needs and interest, which Amazon focuses on first and foremost, I would say they really took advantage of it.”

Life-to-home amenities

Amazon is banking on that. At its event, the company introduced a lot of new ideas that could work well during the changed reality.

The company unveiled a new program called Care Hub, an Alexa facility that lets people see their family members from afar. After you and family members agree to establish a Care Hub connection, you will be able to monitor that person’s activity with Echo devices. If your family member does not perform an Alexa query by a certain time of day, you can receive alerts. A family member can also establish you as an emergency contact and reach out to you by saying “Alexa, call for help”.

“We can all relate to the idea that there is a lot of family that we just can’t see. Even though they were nearby, we wouldn’t see them. I’m in that situation.” , Vice president of Amazon smart home. He mentioned that he is now testing the service with his mother.

Alexa’s hardware executive Miriam Daniel said her team wanted to help with distance learning, so it created the reading sidekick. The facility, which works with hundreds of books, allows Alexa to read with children, encouraging them if they are doing well or supporting if they are struggling.

Amazon worked to make its devices useful for video conferencing and communication, allowing video calling via a Fire TV cube device and a Logitech webcam on your TV. $ 250 Echo Show 10 The smart display provides a 10-inch screen for video calls and is equipped with Skype and group calling. It will get a zoom later this fall.

A new set of Arrow router The devices should help people achieve a more reliable connection at home.

Monitoring technique

Because the epidemic made us spend more time at home, Amazon’s ring unit was sure to find a prominent place in the hardware event. Ring’s surveillance tools and police partnerships are already a concern for privacy advocates. Their concerns are likely to be directed at the $ 250 Ring Always Home Cam, an autonomy Drone One who flies inside your house to monitor multiple rooms on a designated flight path. The device, which is coming out next year, even if it turns on at a suspicious speed, will automatically fly anywhere in the house.

This concept may be too much for a lot of customers. But $ 200 Ring car cam Probably will not. The Car Cam presents the script of Ring’s relationship with the police. The dash-mounted camera will record your traffic stop if you say, “Alexa, I’m being pulled over.” This tool can provide a valuable layer of transparency at a time when police brutality and excessive force have become a major social concern. In June, Apple Launched a similar feature on their iPhone.

Advocates of privacy have called on Amazon to make a bevy of devices with those cameras and microphones. When asked about these concerns, Limp said his team had done a lot to make their products more secure, including adding two-factor authentication And strong password for ring.

“We will continue to innovate in the privacy front and security front,” he said. “You’ve never done it.”

With the holiday season and Prime day If customers agree with the spirit of Limp, Amazon will find out soon. And they will decide how many of these new devices they want to bring to their quarantine life.