Amazon Echo Can Now Lock Your Front Door For You

Amazon’s Echo can play music, turn out the lights, and control switches. Now the virtual assistant has partnered with the San Francisco-based smart hardware company August to lock your doors for you as well.

If you own an August door lock, and an Amazon Echo, you can tell Alexa to lock your door behind you as you leave or enter your home.

Engadget also notes that you can use Alexa to check the lock status of your door for you. The Verge reports that all you need is to ensure that your Amazon and August devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network as well as purchase the $79 August smart bridge that wirelessly connects your lock to your Amazon Echo. The August smart lock will run you $199.

For obvious security reasons, this arrangement does not permit you to unlock your door by simply asking Alexa to. An intruder could simply stand outside your door and shout to request entry to burglarize your home.

Smart devices and connected homes are certainly in vogue right now, but securing the internet of things against hackers is a concern that has yet to be adequately addressed on a broader scale. All in all, this is far from a necessary purchase, and feels more like a gimmicky “Clapper”-like invention than a useful innovation.

Not to mention, it will cost you a couple of hundred dollars to purchase the necessary equipment, just to tell your door to lock itself when you’re standing right in front of it. Maybe you’re better off buying a recliner instead.