Amazon has figured out a way to get into millions of homes without consumers ever having to choose its hardware and services in the first place. Amazon is hoping to find a new way to build market share by offering discounted hardware, customized software and new ways for property managers to harvest and use data.
For Amazon, the appeal is obvious: Adding millions of new users to its services and gaining access to data like their voice-based wish lists and Alexa-powered shopping habits will put it further ahead of the competition which, at the moment, doesn’t have a significant presence in rental properties and new-home construction.
Tenants either receive one of Amazon’s Echo speakers or bring their own, and can use it to control the apartment’s thermostat and locks, as well as other Alexa-compatible smart-home devices the tenants add on, which now range from light bulbs to microwave ovens. He says his company is aiming to roll out its Zego-built, Alexa-compatible smart-home system to more than six million apartments in the U.S. within five years.
The signals that inform this prediction include the sentiments of tenants during in-app chats with apartment managers, whether and how many smart home devices they’ve added to their apartment, and if they pay rent on time, he says. , the nation’s largest home builder by revenue (and second-largest by units), began offering Amazon’s smart speakers in an unspecified portion of the 35,000 new homes it constructed in 23 states last year.
