Amazon has been pushingAlexa skills to more developers lately. The companyopened up the Alexa Mobile Accessory (AMA) Kit to all third-party device makers last month. Amazon has now opened up Alexa’shome security features to the whole developer community. This essentially means more alarm and security camera manufacturers can now add the digital assistant’s functions to their products.
Alexa comes to home security systemsAmazon recently released theSecurity Panel Controller API for Alexato the public, allowing more companies onboard. Manufacturers can nowaccess the code required to let users control their devices with voice commands.The functionality, however, will be initially availablein the US only. In fact, certain models made by Abode, ADT, Honeywell,Ringand Scout are already leveraging it.
If you own a home security system from one of these companies, you can now control it through voice commands. To do so, you first need to download your relevant company’s skill from the Alexa app’s store. You canthen arm, disarm, or check the status of your home security via voice commands. While arming and monitoring your system through voice is great, disarming the system may not be. Amazon is well aware of this security implication and rightly needs you to meet some extra conditions to enabledisarming by voice.
First, you have to manuallyenable disarming by voicein the Alexa app or in your security system’s menus. Then, depending on your security system, you can choose your existing PIN or an Alexa-specific voice code to disarm the system. If your system lets you, choosing the latter could be better than shoutingyour PIN code to everyone within earshot.
While voice controlling your home security system may lead to some security implications, Amazon believes its user-specific voice recognition technology is secure enough. But do you trust the company enough use the feature? Tell us in the comments below.
