Amazon is making it easier to map smart home devices.
During a press event this morning at its HQ2 headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, the company demoed Map View, an upcoming feature in the Alexa mobile app that’ll let customers create a digital map of their house and pin connected devices to it. From Map View, users will be able to see the status of, control and add new devices.
“Today, millions of customers have more than 20 devices connected to Alexa. That’s incredible momentum, but we know it can be hard to manage that many devices,” Charlie French, director of smart home at Amazon, said onstage. “Even I struggle scrolling through a long list of devices trying to find that device with a name I can’t remember. We knew we had to make it easier.”
Lest you be concerned about the privacy implications of Amazon scanning your home, French emphasized that Map View is opt-in, not opt-out, and that users have control over which rooms are added to their floor plan and can delete their floor plan at any time.
Map View will be available later this year in the U.S. on select phones.
