US: Amazon’s Alexa voice recognition could soon become a standard amenity when moving into a new home.
According to Wall Street Journal’s Eddie Small, the everything company’s Alexa Smart Properties team is reportedly attempting to partner with property managers, homebuilders and hoteliers so that its virtual assistant appears in homes throughout the country. It hopes to increase its market share by offering custom software, discounted hardware and more ways for property managers to collect and use data.
Such a move would allow Amazon to add millions of additional users and provide tenants with amenities they would not be able to install themselves at rental properties. At the same time however, it could also prevent tenants from switching to competitors’ products down the line and generate concerns surrounding privacy.
Amazon has already agreed a partnership with Zego, a subsidiary of the rent-payment service PayLease, and it hopes to use this partnership to make it simpler for tenants to pay their rent. PayLease plans to launch its own Alexa-compatible smart-home system to more than six million apartments within the next five years, as Small reports.
Meanwhile, Lennar Corporation, one of the largest home builders in the United States, began offering Amazon’s smart speakers last year in a selection of the 35,000 new homes it built. It will continue doing the same this year as well.
Amazon is now building data hubs for Marriott in anticipation for the launch of its Alexa for Hospitality service. The purpose of the hubs is to allow Amazon to provide information about how guests use Alexa devices in hotel rooms, which are capable of performing services such as adjusting the thermostat and recommending restaurants.
