Welcome to Amazon’s Newest Service…In-Home Deliveries
Forget worrying whether that package left on your front porch will be there when you arrive home. Amazon has an answer for that, and much more.
For years, Amazon has been testing the limits of online deliveries — expanding the number of things you can order at the click of a button, pushing shipments to arrive faster, toying with delivery by drones.
Now, the company is pushing at a new boundary — your front door.
Introducing Amazon Key, a new service that allows your friendly Fed-Ex or UPS driver to actually open your door in order to leave packages inside a house or apartment.
The service is only available to Amazon Prime members. It requires a smart lock, which can be unlocked remotely, as well as the Amazon Cloud Cam — a new Amazon security camera. Amazon Key promises to turn on the camera (pointed at your door) every time the door is unlocked and show you a video of the full delivery.
“Each time a delivery driver requests access to a customer’s home, Amazon verifies that the correct driver is at the right address, at the intended time, through an encrypted authentication process,” Amazon says.
The service will also allow you to unlock the door for friends or family. Eventually, Amazon says, it will have options for service providers (like cleaning services or dog-sitters) to enter as well.
Cost of Amazon Key, including a Cloud Cam and smart lock, begins at $249, and requires Amazon Prime membership ($99 annually). It’s only available in certain cities (where Amazon handles deliveries directly).
Amazon Key addresses issues of security and convenience, while raising its own questions about security and privacy.
Using the service would prevent package theft and obviate the need to stay home or arrange for a spare key for a contractor or visitor.
But it requires customers to be comfortable with a smart lock controlled by Amazon and with an Amazon-connected camera monitoring the inside of their home and communicating to the cloud.
Meanwhile, the unlocking of the front door might not be the key component of this new service. The Verge points out that Amazon is on a “quest to manage your home life and integrate itself into your daily routine.”
Offering a novel delivery service exclusively for customers who buy the camera might give Amazon an edge over the competition, and put the camera in more homes.
Adding a camera that monitors front doors and is integrated with Alexa and the front lock “would be positioning Amazon to know a lot more about [people’s] lives and habits, like when they leave the house in the morning, how often they go on vacation, and when they get back from work at night,” the Verge writes.
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