Amazon today introduced Alexa Home Map, an interactive 3D model of a house and its grounds that places Echo speakers, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV sets, lights, locks and thermostats in the rooms where they physically sit, and lets them be controlled by tapping them on screen. The feature will start rolling out in preview later this year on a new Alexa Home Map app for iOS, inside the Alexa and Ring apps, on Amazon’s larger Echo Show devices including the new Echo Show 16, on the Amazon Ember Artline with Fire TV, and on the new Alexa Tablets, according to a post Amazon published today on its news site under the byline “Amazon Staff.”
Building the map takes three inputs: a street address, a walk-through scan of each room with an iPhone, and the manual placement of each device. The result is a detailed record of a home’s floors, rooms and connected hardware, tied to live feeds from outdoor cameras. Amazon’s post describes what the map shows at length. It says nothing about where the room scans are processed, where the finished model is stored, how long it is kept, or whether it is used for anything beyond the map itself.
In Short
Amazon is launching a 3D picture of a home that shows every smart gadget in the room where it sits, so people can tap a lamp, a speaker or a doorbell camera on the screen instead of asking Alexa out loud. To make it, a household types in its address and walks an iPhone through every room, and Ring cameras then show moving figures for people and cars outside. The announcement does not say where that room-by-room model is kept, how long it is held, or whether it shapes anything else Amazon shows on its screens.
How the map is built
The setup Amazon describes starts outside and works inward. “Add your address, and the exterior of your home appears automatically,” according to the post. The interior comes next: “Then walk through your house, scanning each room with a compatible iPhone, and watch the interior take shape before your eyes.”…