Alexa Guard is a cool feature that can turn your Amazon Echo smart speaker or smart display into a security guard from your home
Voice assistants can be extremely useful, setting timers, providing the day’s news and weather and even controlling your smart home devices for you. But did you know they can also act as a security guard for your home? If you have an Amazon Echo smart speaker or smart display with Alexa built-in the Alexa Guard feature will listen for suspicious sounds in your home when you’re not around and alert you through the Alexa app. Frustratingly, if you’re not in the US, you can’t use Guard just yet, but we did speak to Amazon and they told us “internationalization of all of our products and services is incredibly important”, and they are working hard to “make all of the features and devices available everywhere our customers want them,” so it sounds like it could be available globally in the near future) Fancy grabbing yourself one of Amazon’s smart speakers or smart displays? Check out the best prices on offer right now. Alexa Guard is a handy feature that sees Amazon’s voice assistant utilizes the far-field microphones in an Echo smart speaker or Echo smart display to listen for sounds such as breaking glass or a smoke detector after you’ve told Alexa you’re not going to be around by saying “Alexa, I’m leaving”. If Alexa Guard hears anything, the voice assistant will send an alert to the Alexa app on your smartphone, flagging to you something untoward is happening. You can then listen to the audio clip, or start an Alexa Drop In, which allows you to listen to your Amazon Smart speaker live if you want to hear what’s going on in that room without returning home.
