Secure your home on voice command

ADT adds Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ to product

Boca Raton-based security company ADT has partnered with Amazon to provide voice control commands through its Echo and Dot smart speaker products that respond to “Alexa.”

Homeowners and small business operators who have both the ADT Pulse security product and Amazon’s Alexa soon can activate their security system with their voice, even opening or closing doors or garages provided their homes or businesses have electronic entry systems.

The Alexa voice capabilities begin at the end of this month for ADT Pulse customers. To install ADT’s voice control, customers can follow instructions on their Alexa app on their mobile device.

ADT said it found many of its customers use Alexa, which provides music, news, weather updates, trivia games and can place Amazon product orders. But they also wanted to control their security system with it.

“Customers came to us,” said Rob Moore, director of product platform and services for ADT. “They said, ‘I’m walking into the house, and I have a sleeping child or an armful of groceries. I want to disarm my security system with my voice.”

But ADT and Amazon wanted to make sure the voice-controlled security would not land in the wrong hands. So a voice command to Alexa must include the customer’s pin code: “Alexa, ask ADT to disarm the system with pin 1234 [or whatever pin is chosen by the customer].”

Parents who have children coming home from school may want to give them their own code to unlock the door and disarm the system, Moore said. “It can be used by everyone in the family — the dog walker or the house cleaner.”

ADT worked with Amazon for about six months on adding the voice control and working out the legal aspects, Moore said. He said ADT urges customers to choose a pin code for their electronic system that’s different from the one for Alexa.

The cost to install ADT’s Pulse security system varies, depending on system configuration, equipment and particular services selected, the company said. Amazon’s Echo is priced at about $180 and Dot at just under $50. For more information, visit www.adt.com/alexa.