We’ve long been fans of Alexa’s ability to listen for suspicious sounds, like smoke alarms and breaking glass, for free, but Amazon is now warning that the “free” part is going away.
In an email to owners of Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo speakers, the company said that it will soon discontinue its free Alexa Guard service, which includes the ability to listen for smoke alarms and breaking glass.
That feature is moving over to Alexa Emergency Assist, a new $5.99-a-month service that Amazon announced at its big hardware event last week.
This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers.
While Amazon execs ticked off the features of Alexa Emergency Assist during the on-stage presentation, including the ability to connect users with 24/7 “urgent response” agents, they forgot to mention that the free Alexa Guard service would be going away.
Amazon says it will sunset Alexa Guard in the “coming months.”
A couple of Alexa Guard features will remain free even after the service closes for good, including the ability to set Home and Away modes, as well as Away Lighting, which turns your lights on and off in a “natural” way to fool would-be trespassers when you’re away from home.
First rolled out to US users back in 2019, Alexa Guard was one of the best selling points for an Echo speaker, essentially turning it into an affordable home monitoring device.
A year later, Amazon debuted Alexa Guard Plus, a $5/month version that added the ability to summon help in the event of an emergency as well as listen for other suspicious sounds, including footsteps or doors opening and closing when they shouldn’t be.
Other smart speaker makers eventually added their own versions of Alexa Guard’s sound monitoring features, including Google and Apple. But while Apple’s HomePod speakers will listen for smoke alarms for free, sound recognition on Google’s Nest speakers requires an $8/month Nest Aware subscription.
With Alexa Emergency Assist, you’ll be able to summon help from an urgent response agent by asking Alexa, and your request for assistance will be related to your previously assigned Emergency Contacts.
One of the benefits of sound recognition through Alexa Emergency Assist is that your Echo speakers will be able to listen for suspicious sounds all the time.
With the free Alexa Guard feature, you had to set Alexa to “away” mode before your Echo devices would listen for smoke alarms or breaking glass, and they’d stop listening once you got home.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.