Google's secret home security superpower: Your smart speaker with its always-on mics
Google's secret home security
superpower: Your smart speaker with its always-on mics
Google speakers are listening
to more than just voice commands. Using them for home security could
supercharge Google's $450 million ADT deal.
Janko Roettgers August 3,
2020
Last week, Reddit user Brazedowl
received a curious notification on his phone: Google was telling him that a
smoke detector in his home had gone off. Brazedowl, a teacher from North
Carolina who goes by Drew in real life, knew about the smoke alarm — he was at
home himself and had just fried some sausages in his kitchen. But up until that
moment, he had no idea that his smart speaker was able to detect such events.
"Google just made my dumb smoke detectors smart," he wrote on Reddit. "Pretty rad."
A Google spokesperson told
Protocol that the feature was accidentally enabled for some users through a
recent software update and has since been rolled back. But in light of Monday's
news that Google invested $450 million — acquiring a 6.6% stake — in home
security provider ADT, it may be a sign of things to come for Google, as it
hints at the company's secret home security superpower: millions of smart
speakers already in people's homes.
Once the deal closes, ADT's
more than 20,000 installers will also sell Google-made smart displays, security
cameras and other hardware, and ADT will more closely integrate Google
technology into its own home security offerings. "The goal is to give
customers fewer false alarms, more ways to receive alarm events, and better detection
of potential incidents inside and around the home," Google Nest VP and GM
Rishi Chandra said in a blog post.
Brazedowl wasn't the only
Google smart speaker user receiving a possible preview of this kind of incident
detection in recent days. Other Reddit users reported getting security alerts
after breaking glassware, as well as some false alarms triggered by sounds like
popped bubble wrap and high-frequency noises that could be confused with a
smoke alarm.
When Reddit user Brazedowl
fried some sausages last week, accidentally setting off a smoke alarm, his
Google Home smart speaker sent alerts to his phone.Screenshot: Reddit
Google announced support for the detection of "critical
sounds" for paying subscribers of its Nest Aware home security
subscription service in May. "Your Nest speakers and displays will notify
you if a critical sound is detected, like a smoke alarm or glass breaking, by
sending an alert to the Home app," the company wrote in a blog post.
"From there, you can hear an audio clip or listen live within the Home app
to confirm the alarm."
"A recent software
update enabled these alerts on some of our speakers that didn't have a
subscription, but we've since rolled that back," a Google spokesperson
told Protocol last week. The spokesperson declined to comment on whether Google
had any plans to bring the feature to users without subscriptions in the
future. Google did announce Monday that ADT customers would get access to Nest
Aware over time.
On the one hand, there is
some potential for a privacy backlash. Google has long told users that its
speakers only actively monitor ambient audio for utterances of the "Hey
Google" wake phrase. Any use of far-field microphones for other purposes,
especially for users who didn't sign up for advanced monitoring, could result
in some consumers rejecting the device category altogether.
On the other hand, the
feature does demonstrate how powerful Google's smart speakers can be in the
context of home security. Google sold around 30 million smart speakers and
displays in 2019 alone, market research company Strategy Analytics estimated earlier this year. All of these devices
feature powerful far-field microphones capable of detecting not only voice
commands but also environmental noises.
Some of this functionality is
less obvious than the detection of blaring smoke alarms. Google's smart
displays sense it if someone walks up to them by emitting and monitoring
ultrasonic sounds. Right now, this is being used to change the size of fonts on
the display, but the same technology could conceivably also be used to detect
possible intruders and other movements inside a home.
Google isn't the first
company to rely on smart speakers for monitoring; rival Amazon also uses smart speakers to detect fire alarms and
other sounds as part of its Ring Alarm security system.
But in a way, it is a very
Google-ish approach to home security: The search giant has long made its own
cameras and smoke detectors, with mixed success, and largely failed to make a
mark when it introduced its very own home security system in 2017.
With its ADT partnership,
Google now signals that it is happy to rely on others for the more mundane
aspects of home security, including the huge workforce needed to install and
troubleshoot window sensors and the like. Instead, Google is bringing to the
table what it does best: advanced technology, including millions of cheap
speakers with far-field microphones, ready and able to become smart home
security sensors.
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