Amazon Launches New ‘Alexa For Residential’ Smart Apartment Service

Amazon (AMZN) has now launched Alexa for Residential—an all-new service for property managers to set up and manage Alexa-powered smart home experiences throughout their buildings.

IOTAS, STRATIS IoT and Sentient Property Services are the first smart home integrators to use Alexa for Residential, and they will open multiple smart apartment residences across the U.S. this fall, Amazon announced.

With Alexa for Residential, residents walk in to a ready-to-use, Alexa-powered smart apartment, with no account or device setup required. They can immediately control their apartment’s smart home features, set timers and alarms, get the weather, news from the Echo device- and if a resident has an Amazon account, they can easily link it to access the full range of Alexa features.

“Our vision was to create a service that makes having an Alexa-enabled home accessible for anyone, regardless of whether they rent or own their home,” said Liron Torres, Head of Smart Properties, Amazon Alexa.

“Alexa for Residential goes beyond the smart home—it also enables property managers to provide custom voice experiences for their residents, including information about property amenities and custom services” he added.

Previously, installing voice-enabled experiences for apartment complexes was time consuming and costly, says Amazon, as property managers had no way to reset or manage multiple devices at once. With Alexa for Residential, Alexa-enabled devices are now permanent fixtures in the home and property managers can remotely reset devices to default settings when residents move out.

They can also offer custom voice experiences with custom Alexa skills for different units, including using Alexa-enabled devices in vacant units to answer common questions, enable self-guided tours, or demo smart home features. (See Amazon stock analysis)

Shares in Amazon have surged 82% year-to-date, and the stock scores a resounding Strong Buy Street consensus. That’s with 37 recent buy ratings vs just 1 hold rating. Meanwhile the average analyst price target of $3,726 indicates 11% further upside potential lies ahead.

AMZN price target by wall streets analysts