Amazon has released a new feature, Greetings, to make it more engaging for users to use their Ring doorbells. This exciting new feature leverages Ring’s AI powered video description feature to detect the primary object of interest in front of the Ring camera. Now, Alexa is able to welcome guests in person—on-demand. The new feature is now rolling out to Alexa+ Early Access customers in the United States and Canada.
Greetings’ model is based on creating meaningful responses without knowing who the individual is. This new method is designed to protect the privacy of users while continuing to deliver a tailored business experience for site visitors. With this new feature, Alexa can now welcome visitors to your door. This balances fostering a friendly community spirit with the need to protect your privacy.
Greetings’ introduction comes on the heels of Amazon’s highly criticized facial recognition feature called Familiar Faces. This past capability let users produce a compiled registry of up to 50 frequent guests by tagging their faces. As soon as we are able to confirm who these people are, they will be notified. Further, their visits will be logged in the Ring app’s neighborhood timeline, raising alarm bells about surveillance and data protection.
Fortunately, with greetings, Amazon is beginning to address several of these issues directly. Specifically, we noticed that they are interested in improving overall engagement rather than prioritizing individual identification. The newest wrinkle, though, is that in this context Alexa can speak to guests in a more back-and-forth way. When you’re out and about, or just busy around the house, Alexa can have guests leave a message. That’s how you avoid missing crucial communications from us!
The rollout of Greetings underscores Amazon’s desire to further broaden their smart home platform. Ring is taking a step in the right direction by adding this feature and giving users more control. By making this upgrade, the company continues to put privacy first while providing beneficial services.