It Will Also Listen For Suspicious Noises
Is Alexa not involved in your life enough? Do you feel that she could pay even more attention to your activities around your home? Perhaps, even keep an ear out on the rooms you aren’t in just in to make sure there are no spooky noises there? Would it be even better if she isn’t just listening to you but is able to act on what she hears? Well then, Alexa Hunches are for you!
The Alexa app now allows you to turn on these proactive hunches as well as granting her control over other smart devices in your home and to call for assistance if she hears something she doesn’t like. For the most part, this will allow her to turn off lights in rooms you are not currently occupying or to turn your thermostat down when you are out. The hunches will not just be based on real time data, but Alexa will use the data she has on your historical patterns to predict when it is best to carry out the various actions you have allowed her to via the app.
In addition you can subscribe to the new Guard Plus security service which, similar to other security services, places a call to a representative of the security company if suspicious activity is detected. The difference is that you don’t have to even hear the noises yourself, instead Alexa keeps an ear out for them and will offer to call the police or other emergency services for you.
Remember when people were outraged to learn that Alexa was always listening to them?
While proactive hunches seem like they could make Alexa a lot more useful, having granular controls over what Alexa can automatically act on will be important. An Amazon support article seems to suggest you can select what types of hunches Alexa can complete on its own, but we've reached out to Amazon for more information on how much you can customize proactive hunches.
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