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Hot on the heels of Walmart's plans to deliver groceries directly into the fridges of homes with smart locks, Amazon has announced a similar arrangement for package deliveries, called Amazon Key:
Amazon on Wednesday announced Amazon Key, a new program for Prime members that lets delivery people drop off packages inside of customer homes.
To make Amazon Key possible, Amazon has introduced its own $120 internet-connected security camera called Amazon Cloud Cam. Customers who want to participate in the program need to purchase an accompanying "smart" lock to allow delivery people to enter their home. Combined camera-lock packages start at $250.
With the program Amazon is adding what it thinks is a more convenient option than traditional outside drop-off, while also coming up with one solution to package theft which is rampant in some markets.
The obvious questions are whether people will trust a delivery person to enter their home unattended. Amazon is trying to assuage these fears by alerting customers when a delivery is about to happen to allow them to watch it live via their phone.
This really isn't a big deal. They were delivering to the doorstep previously, and now they want to move the delivery by a couple of feet. There's almost no difference.
Also at The Verge.
Previously: Amazon Wants to Deliver Purchases to Your Car Trunk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday October 26 2017, @02:12PM (2 children)
This also points out the silo problem in that I'm unsure of the carpentry required to enable multiple incompatible corporations to open my front door. So I need one lock for Amazon, another lock for Walmart, another lock for the local food coop which delivers, another lock for the CSA (long story) how does this work exactly from a carpentry perspective?
The way telcos and radio stations do remote buildings isn't exactly a secret, you chain padlocks together so any one padlock can be opened to unlock the gate to get to the remote CO / DSLAM / shared tower or whatever. But carpentry speaking looking at the typical door I'm not seeing how to install multiple locks.
I suppose this is vendor lockin (oh god the pun...) at its highest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 26 2017, @06:46PM
Lots of buildings have master key systems -- a grand master key to open all the doors for the campus police (and the campus locksmith...), zone masters for the cleaners, and individual keys for the actual users.
Since this rent-a-butler service already costs $250, what's a little extra for an electronic lock that can be coded to open for certain sub-keys, and only during specific time windows?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 26 2017, @09:41PM
There's another problem I see: Wooden box full of valuables, meet Mr Crowbar.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.