Amazon Key, the in-home delivery service that allows packages to be dropped off inside your home while you’re away, added compatibility with five new smart locks from Kwikset and Yale today. This brings the total number of Amazon Key compatible connected locks to eight different models.
Amazon Key uses a combination of smart locks and connected cameras to allow delivery drivers to drop off packages inside your home while you’re away. It’s available to Prime members in 37 different U.S. markets and with today’s announcement, customers can customize their Key set up with an expanded variety of touchpad and keyway locks.
While this isn’t major news, increased lock compatibility for Key is another sign that Amazon really wants to get in your front door. Giving people a little more flexibility when choosing their front door lock provides potential Key customers with a teeny bit more control when contemplating the idea of letting delivery people into their unattended homes to drop off packages or groceries.
And right now, customers are wary of giving strangers access to their houses. According to a recent survey by Insurance Quotes, only 31 percent of respondents were willing to use Amazon’s in-home delivery service, with theft and privacy breaches being their top concerns.
Amazon seems to be well aware of this, and is assembling the pieces for a broader security solution that it controls. In March Amazon bought Ring, maker of the connected doorbell camera, which was a move that came just months after the company bought cloud security camera company Blink. It’s easy to see how live video of a delivery person walking up to your door, ringing your doorbell, placing a package inside and leaving could help calm people’s fears.
Still, earning people’s trust with Key is an uphill battle for what is essentially just another way to get you to buy more stuff. But we’re slightly more optimistic at The Spoon. And while there are definite concerns with in-home delivery, when it comes to food, it also allows more people to act on inspiration. If you stumble across an amazing recipe while you’re at work, you can order all the ingredients and they’ll be sitting inside your home–and not out in the elements–ready to be cooked that night. (Or, if you’re feeling super lazy, you can order from your favorite restaurant and have food ready to eat right as you walk in your house.)
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