California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts

Fri Oct 13 22:33:05 UTC 2017

I messaged the Nest guys a few weeks ago about that very issue.  I
think it would be somewhat simple for them to put an RF module in
their Protect devices (smoke alarms) and a speaker to alert about the
issue.  Since they are wifi-enabled, they could probably also arrange
a clearer audio feed over the internet with a fallback to RF if the
internet is down/power is out.

-A

On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
>
> Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home)
> plan to include emergency alert capability?  An estimate 10% of households
> own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy)
> predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020.
>
> Although most silicon valley tech nerds are still in the "invincible" years,
> were the california fires close enough to silicon valley that smart speaker
> developers might think an emergency could affect them.  And an emergency
> alert capability in their smart speakers might be important?
>