When Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, enters someone’s home, it is typically as a guest. But buyers of new Lennar homes will find her waiting for them when they walk in the door.
“Alexa, what are you doing here?”
Lennar Corp. had previously run with Siri and Apple’s smart-home technology. But the nation’s largest home builder is now married to Alexa and offering Amazon’s suite of home automation products as a standard feature in Denver and across the country.
“Everything is included. It is a neat package,” said Frank Walker, Colorado division president at Lennar, during a tour of an Amazon Experience Center at a model home at the Inspiration Colorado community in south Aurora.
Purchasing the various items separately would run around $5,000, Walker said. Lennar buys the equipment in bulk and passes the savings on to its customers. Home buyers receive training and technical support from Amazon to set up and operate the various features.
Lennar uses home design and Wi-Fi signal boosters to eliminate dead spots in the house, Walker said. That signal connects a host of smart products including a Ring video doorbell, a Baldwin lock system, Lutron lights, Honeywell smart thermostats, and controllers for home entertainment systems.
Users control the various systems via voice commands using an Amazon Echo Show, which can run multiple devices at once in what are known as “scenes.”
For example, the party scene lowers the window shades half way, dims the lights, and then turns on music. The movie scene will bring the shades down all the way, turn off the lights and bring up the home video system.
Manufacturers have offered smart home features — think the Kohler touchless faucet — and appliances with digital controls for a decade or more. What is different is that voice-activated platforms can now control the different pieces, said Steve Basten, manager of building products research for John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
But builders struggle with how to approach home automation. Will offering Amazon products, turn off buyers who favor Apple or Google? And with technology changing so rapidly, and devices having limited life spans, how do they warranty smart homes?
Two decades ago, some builders designed homes to accommodate massive rear projection televisions. It didn’t take long for flat screens to make those beasts extinct, leaving hollow caverns behind in living rooms across the nation.
“Builders do the market research and they know the homeowner wants it,” Basten said. “The question is how do you it right, effectively and keep the customer happy.”
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Lennar’s business model is different than most of its competitors, in that it offers as standard features what other builders provide as options. Home automation now is a standard feature Lennar provides.
As for customers who won’t want Alexa listening in on them, they can just turn her off, or replace her with another system. But Walker is confident that buyers young and old will find the smart-home technology indispensable.
And Amazon, the online retailer, gets a showroom for its technology in action in thousands of living rooms.
“As one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, Lennar offers the potential to enable customers to experience the convenience of Alexa within easy driving distance,” a spokesman for Amazon said.
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