Amazon’s ‘Alexa Together’ aged care subscription service for families now supports up to 10 carers – TechCrunch

Amazon is introduce two new features for it “Alexa Together” aged care registration services. Subscription expands on existing Amazon Alexa Care Hub products and includes an emergency helpline, fall detection response features, a remote assistance option that allows family members to manage settings placed on seniors’ devices and feeds activity to family members to notify them when their loved one is active or if there is a delay in normal activity.

With the new “Support Circles” feature, older loved ones can now have up to 10 caregivers on their subscription. Now, both seniors and primary caregivers can add additional carers, or “circle members,” to care for an aging loved one. Amazon notes that circle members can be siblings, cousins, friends, or close neighbors. Circle members can also include the primary caregiver’s spouse so that each spouse receives an alert on their smartphone. Additional carers will have access to things like daily alerts and quick check-ins through the activity feed. The new feature is available to all Alexa Together users now.

Additionally, the service’s remote assistance functionality will soon allow primary caregivers to remotely set up Alexa Procedures, designed to seamlessly group actions together. For example, if a loved one of the primary caregiver starts each morning by turning off the alarm, turning on the bedroom light, asking about the weather, and then the news, the primary caregiver can establish a routine that is personalization to perform all of these actions automatically. By grouping actions together into a routine, elderly loved ones don’t need to ask Alexa to perform each separate action.

“Primary carers will be able to set up Processes for their aging loved ones just like they do on their own accounts, such as turning on all of the family’s smart lights at dusk or set up a Good Night Routine where Alexa will turn off the smart lights and play the sounds of sleep,” the company stated in a blog post. “Amazon will automatically email elderly relatives about the Latest Process so they are notified whenever a new Process is set up.”

Amazon has been invested in using Alexa to care for the elderly and infirm. In addition to Care Hub and Alexa Together, the company announced last year that they brought Alexa to hospitals and senior living centers, like the Atria and Eskaton activity centers, and hospitals including Cedars-Sinai, BayCare, and Houston Methodist. The company also said it will work with partners who can tap into Alexa Smart Properties tools and APIs that will allow them to develop specialized solutions for the aged care market. While these aged care solutions are designed to be sold in a business-to-business (B2B) setting, Alexa Together is aimed at the consumer market.