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Amazon Key Puts Deliveries -- And Delivery People -- In Your Home (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Rushing home to sign for a package can be a chore, and nothing craters a day like having a delivery stolen from your doorstep. The question Amazon asks with its new Key app and Cloud security camera: Are those annoyances enough to let a delivery person into your home, unattended, to drop off a box? The answer should present itself soon enough, at least in the 37 cities in which Amazon will launch its new in-home delivery service as of November 8. There, customers who purchase an Amazon Cloud Cam, own a compatible smart lock, and download the accompanying Amazon Key app can grant access for in-home deliveries -- and watch the drop-offs live, remotely. The system, exclusive for Prime members, costs $250 to get started, a price that includes both the camera and a smart lock from either Kwikset or Yale. (You can also buy the cameras individually for $120, with a slight discount applied for buying multiples.) And while Amazon has gone to some lengths to minimize the creepiness of a definitionally invasive service, it still forces potential enlistees to consider just what kind of trade-offs they're willing to make in the name of convenience. Amazon says that in-home delivery will be available for "tens of millions" of items, whether it's sent same-day, standard, or any shipping method in between. As for those safety measures: Amazon's doing what it can to ensure that strangers don't game its system.
No. Just no freakin' way. The folks they will hire as delivery folks aren't going to be well paid. I can see casing your house for a later robbery as being a helluva lot more lucrative. Having "cloud security" just means it's probably not working as well as a normal security system or being used/hijacked as a DDoS zombie. Call me a Luddite, but I gotta say "Not just no. Hell no, Amazon."
I can see a new house style with either a second building like an external garage or an isolated room with its own door, with a fridge/freezer just for Amazon or other deliveries. One door would be for the deliveryperson to drop off the goodies, and another person could just open it up when inside to get stuff. That way, if the lock was forced or compromised, it wouldn't mean access to the entire house.