Amazon Alexa Smart Properties for Senior Living announced for Germany

Amazon wants to introduce the so-called Alexa Smart Properties for Senior Living in Germany. It’s a solution that allows retirement homes in Germany, France, Italy and the UK to integrate Alexa into their homes. Whether you see this as a dystopian step for Amazon to reclaim data from the elderly, or see it as meaningful support for caregiving, I’ll leave it up to you.

According to Amazon, Alexa Smart Properties has been specially developed for the needs of seniors and caregivers. Alexa lets residents stay informed and entertained using their voice. In Germany, the solution is used for the first time in the Heinrich-Haus senior center (operated by Josefs-Gesellschaft) in Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate. Alexa Smart Properties also allows residents of retirement homes to stay in touch with loved ones outside the home – through the Alexa-to-Alexa call feature.

Family members can then also video call loved ones. Of course, you don’t necessarily need Alexa for this, other solutions would also work. Alexa Smart Properties will also help display facility activities, menus, and reminders on Amazon Echo Show devices with screens. Amazon says caregivers can use Alexa’s communication capabilities to communicate with residents by making announcements or voice and video calls to other Alexa-enabled devices in the home.

With smart home features such as smart lighting, blinds or thermostats, installations can help seniors become more self-sufficient and independent. At the same time, and this is probably the real appeal of implementation, staff save time and money. I myself see this in a very critical way, on the one hand because it means that a commercial company is directly involved in the care which has an interest in collecting and evaluating data there and on the other hand because direct social contacts between the people to be cared for and the carers are even possible further away.

Either way, with Alexa Smart Properties tools and APIs, solution providers can remotely manage and maintain a fleet of Alexa-enabled devices. Together with solution provider DiscVision, the Josefs-Gesellschaft has developed a competence with Alexa Smart Properties that can be used to provision and configure a large number of Alexa-enabled devices. Everything has been developed with data protection in mind, assures Amazon. No personal information would be shared with Alexa and voice recordings would not be stored. Of course, this still allows for general assessments.

After all, residents can mute all microphones to recognize the wake word at any time by pressing the microphone off button on their Echo device. Well, what do you think of this story?

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