Amazon Wants You To Let Them Into Your House When You’re Not Home To Deliver Packages
Source – 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.
“Each time a delivery driver requests access to a customer’s home, Amazon verifies that the correct driver is at the right address, at the intended time, through an encrypted authentication process,” the company said. “Once this process is successfully completed, Amazon Cloud Cam starts recording, and the door is then unlocked. No special codes or keys are ever provided to delivery drivers.”
An Amazon spokesperson said that the delivery people Amazon works with are “thoroughly vetted, with comprehensive background checks and motor vehicle records reviews.”
The company said the in-home option will go live on Nov. 8 in 37 U.S. cities and some surrounding areas.
Uber X Drivers were thoroughly vetted too, and we know how that went. I hate to say it by relying on humans that have reached the lofty status of Amazon delivery driver to NOT rob you of all the shit you have in your house isn’t a bet I’m willing to make.
It sounds convenient, and in a perfect world where you can trust a complete stranger to open my door and safely put my order of glass dildo’s on the foyer floor of my house, I’d be all in.
However, this isn’t a perfect world, and you can’t force someone to give a shit about your package and not want to take the TV off your wall or dry hump your college-age daughter home for reading week. Sorry but its a fact and I’m right. It’s human nature.
Give me drones any day. You?
Dean Blundell
Dean Blundell is a Canadian radio personality. Best known as a longtime morning host on CFNY-FM (The Edge) in Toronto, Ontario. In 2015 he was named the new morning host on sports radio station CJCL (Sportsnet 590 The Fan). Dean started his career in radio in 2001 and for nearly 20 years been entertaining the radio audience. Dean’s newest venture is the launch of his site and podcast which is gaining tremendous momentum across North America.
