August’s Smart Lock gets Alexa functionality

Alexa continues its unremitting march across the world’s different smart home devices with the addition of the August Smart Lock to its list of compatible products. The hardware startup is bringing voice control to its smart home product courtesy of Amazon’s friendly AI.

The functionality is arriving for both the first and second generation of the Smart Lock by way of the Alexa app, letting users check to see if the door is locked and lock it remotely when used in tandem with the August Connect WiFi Bridge. The lock is part of the Launchpad program launched by Amazon last year to shine a spotlight on the emerging world of hardware startups.

August announced similar functionality for the lock last year when it added Siri compatibility by way of a Homekit compatible upgrade, though this move marks Amazon’s first officially sanctioned compatibility with a smart lock system. This is just the latest in a long line of additions in the two tech giants’ battle for smart home dominance.

Whether or not you’re comfortable ceding control of your front doors to a cloud-based assistant, however, is another question entirely.