A lot of the headlines of late may have been on Google slowly putting together the pieces of its smart home ecosystem, but Amazon wants some of the glory too.
Amazon wants to be seen to supporting a whole home system, and to do this is needs to have developers on its side… enter its latest API.
The retailer has released new APIs allowing Amazon-owned Ring and August “smart” cameras and doorbells to talk with its Echo devices (although not all devices for now).
Amazon currently works with WebRTC compliant cameras or 3Ps which work off a WebRTC bridge to work with Alexa. This functionality has already hit Ring devices, naturally, but there’s more to come.
This will allow users not just to see who’s rang the doorbell through an Echo Show or Echo Spot, but facilitates two-way communication. This could also activate other connected products in the home if users particularly fancy getting creative.
Custom announcements can be set up using Routines in the app too.
Three weeks ago Amazon revealed a bunch of weird and wonderful Alexa-activated powered (smart microwave, anyone?). This was followed by announcing that certain Alexa skills will work together last week, as it firmly sets its sights on not having Google pull the rug from under it in the mainstream home tech space.
This is a US update for now, but will likely head across the pond sometime in the near future.