Amazon has announced steps to bring its Cloud Cam and Echo smart speakers closer together with Alexa voice control. Starting today, you can ask Alexa to turn on your Cloud Cam, and Alexa-enabled devices with screens, like the Echo Show and Echo Spot, can be used for two-way audio communication with a Cloud Cam.
Once a live feed is displayed, press and hold the mic icon in the lower right corner of your device’s screen to turn Cloud Cam on.
Echo owners can also receive motion detection alerts from an Echo device. Alerts come in the form of a glowing green ring atop an Echo speaker or a popup on the screen of an Echo Show or Echo Spot. When an alert is signaled, you just say “Alexa, what are my notifications?” Alerts can also be sent when the camera recognizes a specific person, so you could hypothetically get an alert when your kids walk in the door from school.
Notifications for Echo speakers were introduced last fall and can appear for some Alexa skills or to hear updates on the status of an Amazon order.
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Amazon also introduced the ability to access live Cloud Cam footage from any web browser using cloudcam.amazon.com.
Cloud Cam control is the second Alexa upgrade today, following news this morning that Fire, Android, and iOS tablets can now make voice and video calls or send messages using the Alexa app.
Two weeks ago, Google-owned Nest added Google Assistant access to its smart home security camera.
