Guard Is a New Alexa Skill That Can Help Keep Your Home Safe When You’re Away

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Amazon has just introduced Guard, a powerful new skill for Alexa that can help keep your home safe when you’re away. With Guard, Alexa can alert you to suspicious sounds and show you what’s going on back home. This new skill is free to use and may help alert you to problems back home when you’re not there.

How Alexa Guard Works

Alexa Guard is a new skill from Amazon that uses your Echo device to listen for suspicious sounds when you’re away from home. Say, “Alexa, I’m leaving.” to turn on Guard.

When Alexa Guard is turned on, the microphone on your Echo will listen for noises such as the sound of breaking glass, the smoke detector alarm, and/or the carbon monoxide detector alarm. If you have an Alexa device with a camera, such as an Echo Show or Echo Spot, the camera can be activated so you can Drop In and see what’s going on at home.

Guard also works with smart lights connected to Alexa. You can program smart lights to turn on at the sound of breaking glass to ward off intruders. Guard can also be set to turn lights on and off daily.

This video from Amazon shows how Guard can work to protect your home when you’re away:

https://youtu.be/0i_YAgHqVTI

When Alexa Guard hears a suspicious sound it can send a Smart Alert to your phone, notifying you of what it heard. Alexa will record a 10 second audio clip and send it to your phone so you can hear what’s happening at home. You can also watch live video from your home, if you have an Echo Show or Spot, so you can see what’s going on.

Alexa Guard can be connected to Ring and ADT security systems. It can send a notification to these monitoring services, as well as your phone, with alerts of suspicious sounds.

Guard won’t call emergency services directly. You’ll receive a Smart Alert, then you can decide how to handle the situation. Your Echo Show may show you that your new puppy Fluffy just knocked over your priceless vase and that no intruder was involved. Upsetting, yes, but no need to involve law enforcement.

How to Set Up Alexa Guard

To use Alexa Guard you need to do two things:

1. Enable the Alexa Guard Skill
2. Activate Away mode when you leave your house.

To enable the Guard skill, update your Alexa app on your phone to the latest version. Open the app, then go to Settings => Guard => Set Up Guard and follow the instructions.

You can set up Guard to alert you to each sound, or not. For instance, if your pet Fluffy often breaks items in your house when you’re gone, you may want to skip the breaking glass Smart Alert.

You can also set up your smart lights and link Guard to your Ring or ADT alarm systems.

To finish the setup you’ll see your Guard settings and confirm them.

When you say, “Alexa, I’m leaving” a white ring light will show on Echo speakers and a shield will appear on the home screen of the Echo Show and Spot.

Say, “Alexa, I’m home” when you get back to turn off Away mode and turn on Home mode.

You can also switch between Home and Away modes using the Alexa app.

To learn more about Guard, visit Amazon’s Alexa Guard page.

Availability

Alexa Guard is free to use, there are no monthly fees or initial costs (other than buying an Echo device). Alexa Guard is compatible with Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Plus, Echo Show, Echo Spot, and Echo Input.

Amazon is rolling out this feature in the U.S. Update your Alexa app if you’d like to set up Guard for your Echo devices.

Privacy

If you’re highly concerned about privacy, chances are you don’t have an Echo device in your home. But if you do have an Echo device and use Guard, you’re telling Amazon when you’re at home and when you leave.

But Alexa probably can figure that out anyway.

Your Thoughts

Do you like the idea of Alexa Guard being able to monitor your house when you’re away? Would you like to get alerts about suspicious sounds when you’re not at home? If you have an Echo device, will you be setting up Alexa Guard?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!