Amazon has purchased the company behind the Blink line of wireless connected video cameras and doorbells, in a move that could help the e-commerce giant accelerate adoption of its Amazon Key in-home delivery service.
Blink’s array of products includes a video doorbell as well as outdoor and indoor connected security cameras. These devices fit nicely with Amazon Key, which uses a combination of cloud-connected locks and indoor cameras for users to monitor any Amazon Key in-home deliveries. The Blink line is Alexa-enabled and wireless, so installation for potential Key users would be a snap.
Adding an external camera or video doorbell also gives Key users more vectors to keep tabs on delivery. People could watch the delivery van pull up and get a better image of the delivery driver (who is only supposed to open the door enough to slide the package through). Adding the outdoor camera could also help mitigate the WiFi security hole researchers found in Key earlier this year.
But with this acquisition, Amazon gets something more than just a new line of cameras. As my former colleague, Stacey Higginbotham writes, Amazon also gets its own image processing chip. “Another interesting aspect of this is that Amazon could actually use this plus its image recognition to determine what people have in their homes,” Higginbotham told us.
Which sounds… creepy. I mean, technically, Amazon already knows pretty much everything I have in my home since they probably delivered it. But if you consider that Amazon was already awarded a patent that lays out using image recognition to know what’s growing in your garden, knowing what’s inside your house isn’t exactly stretch.
The question now remains, will Amazon bulking up its security offerings make potential users feel secure enough to trust Key in-home delivery?