Amazon Introduces Smart-Home ‘Experience Centers’
Amazon partners with national homebuilder Lennar to create Alexa-enabled smart homes in select cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
The Amazon Experience Centers inside Lennar model homes are designed to give customers an idea of how Alexa and smart home services can be integrated into their everyday lives.
Amazon has announced the opening of interactive Amazon Experience Centers within select Lennar model homes across the United States. In these Alexa-enabled smart homes, customers can ask Alexa to control the television, lights, thermostat, shades, and more.
The model homes showcase how customers can use Alexa in their everyday lives. According to the retail giant, customers can experience how easy it can be to reorder household essentials using the Amazon Dash Button, listen or watch Prime content with Fire TV, or schedule on-demand home services through Amazon Home Services.
“We are excited to extend our relationship with Lennar with the launch of Amazon Experience Centers. As one of the nation's largest homebuilders, Lennar offers the potential to enable this experience within easy driving distance of millions of customers. “We wanted customers to experience a real home environment that showcases the convenience of the Alexa smart home experience, great entertainment available with Prime, and Home Services,” says Nish Lathia, general manager, Amazon Services.
In a real home setting, customers can experience how Alexa, Prime, and Amazon services come together.
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Using Alexa in the experience centers, customers can adjust the thermostat, see who's at the front door without leaving the couch, and try routines such as “Alexa, good morning” to have Alexa turn on lights, read the weather, and provide an update on commute times based on traffic.
Customers can also experience Amazon Prime using voice control with access to more than two million songs on Prime Music along with Prime Original movies and series.
The Experience Centers are set up by “Amazon experts,” who plan to update and refine the experience within each model home. The experts are Amazon employees who are specially trained on the latest technology, says the company.
If customers are impressed, they can bring the experience to their existing homes by booking a one-on-one session with an Amazon employee.
“Amazon's ability to bring a home to life with Alexa smart home experiences, entertainment, and services — coupled with their obsession with customer experience — is a natural extension of our Everything's Included approach to homebuilding,” says David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures.
“We picked Amazon because of our shared commitment to customers, their Amazon experts across the country, and their ability to connect customers with thousands of service providers through Amazon Home Services.”
Amazon Experience Centers are now open in Lennar model homes in Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC with more coming soon.
