Amazon Launches Customizable Alexa Smart Home Service For Property Managers

Amazon continues to push its voice assistant technology into more direct integrations with residential real estate.

On Thursday, the company announced the launch of its Alexa for Residential service with a blog post. Upon release, smart home and Internet of Things companies Stratis IoT, IOTAS and Sentient Property Services have already partnered with Amazon to bring Alexa for Residential into homes and apartments.

As a product marketed to property managers and landlords, Alexa for Residential is not as dependent on user-purchased devices such as Amazon Echo smart speakers. In an Alexa-integrated apartment, for example, tenants would be able to communicate with Amazon's voice assistant through a unit's built-in IoT devices or Echos provided for units by landlords.

Landlords and property managers would have access to the data collected by apartments' Alexa-powered devices, Amazon said in its blog post, saying the reason for that is in order to clear them when tenants move out. Alexa for Residential will come with the ability for property managers to add custom skills, opening up the possibility for tenants to make maintenance requests or pay rent by voice.

Units will come with a mode for prospective tenants on walk-throughs to have self-guided tours and ask questions, the answers to which can be customized by a property manager. Amazon also plans to integrate Alexa for Residential with its Amazon Web Services cloud computing technology to open up its programming to more software developers, ZDNet reports.

Amazon has signaled its intentions to bring Alexa into every possible home for years, investing in smart home companies as well as partnering with landlords for exclusive rights to IoT integration.