Users can arm, disarm, and check the status of some security systems just by asking Alexa to do so.
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| © Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge |
By Sean Hollister, The Verge
You would think that Amazon’s Ring home security system and Amazon’s
Echo smart speakers would intelligently work together, right? You’d be
mostly wrong — but today, the company is taking another small step
towards tying them together by letting you arm, disarm, and check the
status of some Ring, ADT, Honeywell, Abode, and Scout security systems
just by asking Alexa to do so.
And since I recently bought a Ring Alarm for my own house — Dan convinced me with his review — I decided to give the new functionality a spin.
It’s
a pretty simple integration, honestly. You install the Ring skill from
the Skill Store in your Alexa app, make sure Alexa can see your alarm
system, and then you can use the following commands (in the United
States):
- Alexa, arm Ring
- Alexa, set Ring to Home / Away
- Alexa, is Ring armed?
- Alexa, disarm Ring
It’s
a little bit easier than flipping open the Ring app, waiting for it to
connect to the Alarm base station and tapping a button, but only by a
little, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to even tell which of your
door or window sensors has been tripped.
Mind you, the disarm
command only works if you explicitly enable it in the skill’s settings
page and also say your pin — which makes sense, because you wouldn’t
want a burglar just shouting “ALEXA, DISARM RING” from outside your home
before they break in.
Amazon announced today that it’s opening up
its Security Panel Controller API to other device manufacturers as
well, so you can probably expect that list of supported alarms to
expand.
Amazon’s also rolling out an invite-only preview of its Alexa Guard feature today, which gives Alexa the ability to listen for a glass window breaking,
or a smoke alarm blaring, and alert you right away. That’d come in
handy for Ring owners too, because Ring doesn’t offer window break
sensors yet.
If you want to sign up for notifications about when
you can try Alexa Guard, too, you’ll find that in the Alexa App >
Settings > Guard > Notify Me When Available.
I’d be negligent if I didn’t point out there are
a couple other, limited ways that Ring can work with Amazon’s voice
assistant today. You can ask Alexa to show your Ring Doorbell’s video
feed on an Echo Show or Fire TV (which isn’t a Ring exclusive feature) and you can use an Echo as an extra doorbell chime as well.
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