Amazon’s new 'Alexa Guard' feature turns Echo devices into security sensors

E-commerce giant Amazon, which has made inroads into the home security market in recent years with the development of its own smart home devices as well as through the acquisition of companies with established products like Ring, is once again making industry headlines as the company officially rolled its new "Alexa Guard" feature this week.

The feature, which was originally announced last September, essentially turns the company’s Echo devices into an acoustic security sensor capable of sending smartphone alerts to users if it detects the sound of glass breaking or a smoke or carbon monoxide detector going off inside their home. A 10-second audio clip of the sound in question will also be sent to users for verification.  To enable the feature, users simply have to say, “Alexa, I’m leaving,” to set Guard to “Away” mode or say, “Alexa, I’m home,” to disable it.

In addition, Guard can also be leveraged to enable “Away Lighting,” which can turn smart lights on or off to make it appear as though someone is home. According to the company, Alexa uses machine learning to determine the proper lighting activity for a customer’s home based on their lighting usage.      

Alexa Guard can also be integrated with alarm systems from Ring and ADT. In the case of ADT, those with ADT Pulse and Control security systems can choose to have Smart Alerts from their Echo devices forwarded to the company’s monitoring center for further action.

“When you link Alexa Guard to a supported ADT connected security system and choose to forward Smart Alerts to ADT’s professional monitoring centers, we will use our own established protocol for determining if emergency services should be notified,” the company said in a statement.

For those with Ring security systems, Alexa can automatically arm the users system when Guard is set to away mode. Uses will receive quick access to the Ring app where they can request the dispatch of emergency response if they have professional monitoring with Ring Protect Plus.