Alexa is more important than ever during the Coronavirus, and Amazon knows it

Amazon’s Alexa is more relevant than it has ever been due to Corona Virus pandemic.

Retail giant officials hit that point again and again on Thursday Fall Amazon product launch eventEmphasizing the value of smart home features for those who are stuck at home. Step up equipment and services to keep us entertained, and help us connect and keep track of our homes.

“Nobody expected the pandemic, and we certainly didn’t plan for it,” Dave Limb, the head of Amazon Devices, said in an interview after the event. “But I think our homes are now our offices, it’s our schools, our cinemas. A lot of our products are becoming more and more applicable in this environment.”

Amazon clearly agrees with this development because it keeps people connected to its portfolio of services and products. Limb said video streams are on the rise and billions of hours are watched every month through Amazon Fire TVs. The same goes for reading books on Kindle devices and listening to music on Echo speakers. Dump all the things that people buy online at Amazon.com, and the quarantine has worked somewhat for the company.

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Amazon chief talks about Alexa, privacy and aviation …

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Some would say Alexa’s increased influence is a bad thing. It’s alarming that one of the largest and richest companies on the planet has so many connections with our home life, which gives it a greater ability to collect a lot of data about us. There are a lot of security problems – like the Amazon brand Camera ring Hijacked by a hacker – To temporarily stop agents.

But there are reasons to be grateful, too. These types of products will not replace visiting loved ones in person, but they are definitely useful for communication when we have to be away.

Ultimately, consumers will decide how much or little Alexa they want in their lives. If history provides any evidence, they will need more, especially as the pandemic is sparking interest in video conferencing, security systems and broadcast services.

“The pandemic has brought everything to the Amazon business model,” said Brett Kinsella, founder of the sound technology website VoicePotAbout new Amazon devices. “If you look back at our times and look at just responding to customer needs and interests, which is what Amazon focuses on first and foremost, I would say they did.

Life features from home

Amazon is relying on this to happen. In this event, the company introduced a lot of new ideas that could work well during the changing reality caused by the pandemic.

The company unveiled a new program called Care Hub, an Alexa feature that allows people to monitor their family members from afar. After you and a family member agree to set up a Care Hub connection, you will be able to monitor that person’s activity feed using Echo devices. If someone in your family does not make any inquiries from Alexa at a certain time of day, you can get an alert. Family members can also designate you as an emergency contact and call you by saying “Alexa, call for help”.

“We can all get attached to the idea that there are a lot of families that we can’t see right now. Even if they were around, we wouldn’t be able to see them. I’m in this position,” said Daniel Rausch, vice president of Amazon Smart Home. He mentioned that he is now testing service with his mother.

Myriam Daniel, Alexa Devices CEO, said her team wanted to help with distance learning, so he created the Reading Sidekick team. The feature, which works with hundreds of books, allows Alexa to read with children, encouraging them if they are doing well or providing support if they are struggling.

Amazon has also made its devices useful for video conferencing and communication, allowing video calls to be made on TV through the Fire TV Cube and Logitech webcam. $ 250 Eco Show 10 The smart screen provides a 10 inch screen for video calls and is equipped with Skype and conference calling. He will get Zoom later this fall.

A new set of Eero router The devices should also help people have more reliable connections at home.

Technical oversight

With the pandemic causing us to spend more time indoors, the Ring unit at Amazon is sure to have a prominent place in the hardware event. Ring’s surveillance equipment and police partnerships are already a concern of privacy advocates. Their fear likely heads to $ 250 Always home loop cam, Independent Drone Fly inside your home to observe many rooms on a specific flight path. The device, which will be released next year, will automatically fly off somewhere in the house if it is triggered by suspicious movement.

This concept may be too much for many clients. But 200 dollars Ring Car Camera It probably won’t be. The car’s camera flips the text of Ring’s police relationship. The dashboard camera will record your traffic breakpoint if you say, “Alexa, get stopped. This device could provide a valuable layer of transparency at a time when police brutality and excessive force became a major social concern. In June, an Apple He introduced a similar feature on his iPhone.

Privacy advocates have called on Amazon to create a group of devices that have cameras and microphones built into them. When asked about these concerns, Limb noted that his team has done a lot to make their products safer, including adding: Two-factor documentation And stronger passwords for Ring.

“We will continue to innovate on the privacy front and the security front,” he said. “You never finish.”

With the holiday season and Prime Day Coming up, Amazon will soon find out if customers agree with Lemp’s sentiment. They will decide how many of these new devices they want to introduce into their isolated lives.