Suzanne Humphries
Sure, you can go into the Alexa app to look at your Alexa device’s live camera feed to see if anything’s happening, or you can wait for it to send you an alert if it notices any activity. That’s right—Alexa can now alert you when it sees a package or person at your door.
Amazon just rolled out a new batch of announcements that will allow compatible devices to send you these alerts. So if a neighbor comes over, or if a delivery person drops off a package for you, you can view a push notification from the Alexa app, hear an alert on your Echo speaker, or view the event on an Echo Show, Fire tablet, or Fire TV.
For the time being, the “person detection” feature is only available on Ring video doorbells and cameras, or any video doorbell with a “Works with Alexa” certification. Amazon mentioned in a recent blog post that the feature will eventually roll out for other outdoor security cameras, like Google’s Nest Cams and Abode’s outdoor cameras soon.
For the “package detection” feature, however, Google Nest users won’t be so lucky. It will support Abode IOTA, the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 (that’s the only Ring device supported for this feature), and a few select compatible outdoor cameras from other companies.
What’s really neat is that the feature even works with Alexa routines. For example, if someone is detected by your camera, you can program a compatible smart light to turn on or your smart locks to lock (if they weren’t already). There’s a downside, though, which is that these features are tied to a Ring Protect subscription (about $3 per month). You can enable the feature from the Ring app.
via Android Central
