Amazon has announced a new service known as Amazon Key, allowing couriers to unlock your front door and safely deliver your packages.
Amazon Prime has been and continues to be Amazon’s premium service, offering customers the best in online shopping and reliable home delivery. To maintain this trend, Amazon will be rolling out Amazon Key: a service that utilises Amazon’s new Cloud Cam and smart lock technologies that when paired together can connect to the internet through the customers home Wi-Fi and the Zigbee wireless protocol.
Once connected, couriers will be able to scan the barcode on the customer’s package which in turn will verify that everything checks out, thus unlocking the door and allowing the courier to leave the package inside the customers home. The courier then promptly leaves, locks the door through a prompt on their phones and carries on with their day. The entire process is recorded and sent to the customer for ease of mind and security purposes.
It should be noted, that although many of the components used in Amazon Key utilise existing technologies, the Cloud Cam device has been manufactured by Amazon exclusively.
The start-up cost for Amazon Key will be $249.99 USD and will include the camera, a smart lock and free installation. Amazon Key will start rolling out November 8, 2017, and will be available in 37 cities across the U.S.
Hopefully, Amazon Key is a success and prompts the company into trying out the service in other regions in which Amazon is available.
