Amazon Updates Alexa To Guard Your House and Listen For Broken Glass, Smoke Alarm (techcrunch.com) 69
Amazon is rolling out an update to Alexa that will turn the company's line of smart home products into home security devices while the user is out. Called "Alexa Guard," the feature will have your smart speakers listen for key sounds, including breaking glass and smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. If the Echo hears the noise, it will send you an alert, coupled with an audio recording of the noise. TechCrunch reports: It's an interesting new addition and one that leverages the sometimes controversial fact that the device's mics are designed to always be listening. Amazon points out that it worked with licensed contractors to break hundreds of different glass windows with different instruments in order to create a wide range of different sounds for Alexa to listen for.
The new feature works with different smart home devices, as well. Users with Ring or ADT pro monitoring can set it up to forward alerts to their providers. Users with Away Lighting setup, meanwhile, can use the alert to flip on lights in order to make it look like you're still around. The app is rolling out as a free addition to all Echo owners in the U.S.
The new feature works with different smart home devices, as well. Users with Ring or ADT pro monitoring can set it up to forward alerts to their providers. Users with Away Lighting setup, meanwhile, can use the alert to flip on lights in order to make it look like you're still around. The app is rolling out as a free addition to all Echo owners in the U.S.
Re: (Score:1)
I also set off the smoke alarm cooking all the time... hope it's easy to disable this.
Re: (Score:2)
So, you would rather disable this entirely than to get an expected (I would even consider it a good test) from time-to-time?
Kind of throwing the baby out with the bath water there...
Re: (Score:1)
yes. I don't have it currently, and dont want it.
Re: (Score:1)
Make sure you disable it when hosting parties? There will be many un-intentional glass breaking there.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually the cops kill more white people.
But please go on with your racist rant.
Re: (Score:1)
not if you normalize by population
but please, go on with your moronic "acktually" posts
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe you should normalize by the population that should be in prison, like Bill and Hitlary Clinton.
Rich white people can commit felonies without any consequences. They'll even laugh about it afterwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Then why don't all the blacks in white countries LEAVE, and live around their own kind, in Africa?
Ah yes, the White Nationalist dream. "Don't mix the races, leave America as a white country, ship all the black people off to Africa, separate forever."
Why should black people have to be the ones to leave? Why not deport you to Norway, or Russia? They were born here, they're just as American as you, they have as much right to be here as you do. Since you're the one preaching the separation of the races, maybe you're the person who should be ejected from the country.
Re: Breaking Glass While Black (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
> Be a black man in America
> Pimp your house with Alexa
> Accidentally drop glass on the floor near your Alexa
> Get shot and killed by an American police officer
This was my 1st thought and I'm white.
Racist moderator; the only -1 post is a totally valid point.
Just something that most white people do not think about. Or they are too stupid to realize there is a racial culture of fear and disproportionate treatment in the USA.
It doesn't even have to be race, you can be a target for whatever reason a
Hello, this is Varachnu with Wolf Home Security. (Score:2)
Hello, this is Varachnu with Wolf Home Security.
Licensed? (Score:1)
Wait... you have to be license to break glass now?
Re: (Score:3)
Burgler: "Don't worry, I'm just a licensed Amazon contractor breaking hundreds of different glass windows with different instruments"
And now I'll know when it happens... (Score:2)
... when the kids drop another of the glasses or plates from the wedding set....
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon deception (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amazon deception (Score:5, Informative)
The watchdog starts the transmission when it hears the "wake word", which by default is "Alexa". But there are people with that name, so you can choose from several. It's not hardcoded. It shouldn't be hard to have it transmit when one of several wakewords is heard, and broken glass could be a wakework.
The times to get upset are if the blue light doesn't go on (signifying transmission) or if it mishears the wakeword. But having three available isn't an issue.
Re:Amazon deception (Score:4, Informative)
Such a chip could be programmed to recognize other sounds, and then load up the main processor and network connection.
Of course there is no such thing as a computer chip that is only capable of hearing the word "Alexa."
Re: (Score:1)
Just think about the Google Nest device that added Ok Google support by software update. Until then the built in microphone wasn't listed anywhere.
Re:Amazon deception (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says you have to enable it with a command before you go out, i.e. it's only listening all the time when you tell it to.
Assuming you believe them.
So... It'll be listening and recording? (Score:2)
So it will be listening -- for more than its trigger word -- and recording (so it can send it to you)? Great.
Another reason to not have this in your house.
Today's world is creepy beyond belief (Score:2)
Only 30 years ago, people would have set fire to the buildings of any company suggesting 24hr listening of people's homes...
Re: Today's world is creepy beyond belief (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
There's more... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
...to you, at work?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Alexa also listens for my wife's orgasm, and then orders me a sandwich.
So....you'll continually get sandwiches while at work?
*ducks*... ;)
here is your telescreen (Score:2)
And you fuckers once insisted these things are benign, not listening to every aspect of our lives. Between the constant mic and the article from 6yrs ago that talked about how they figured out, using wi-fi, your gestures, thus making motion detection cameras in the xbox oboselete; we now have something even more devious than a telescreen. There will be no hiding from behind a couch now.