Ok, so prime day is going on across the globe and even though after so many years and thrice the number of shopping festivals have bored me into ignorance, I sure love to read about new things that are launching. And new products and services and even new releases are galore on Prime day. But here’s something which is happening in the US but not in India. It’s called the ‘Amazon Key’ and it’s delivering stuff right into the boot of your car.
Now granted that Amazon Key has been around for nearly two years in US. It was a service that allowed delivery personnel to unlock your doors (yes, when you were not home) and deliver packages inside securely. The service which began in Nov 2018, required you to have Amazon cloud cam and compatible smart locks for your home (not common in India). I am sure we do have smartlock enabled homes in India but they are far from mainstream, so Key was never something in my horizon of thinking for India. That’s until now with Key’s latest usecase.
For Prime Day 2019, Amazon key is delivering things to cars. Yes, according to a cnet report, if you own an Amazon Key-compatible vehicle, you can simply park it in a publicly accessible area within two blocks of the delivery address. The Amazon Key app will send you a notification when your package is out for delivery and Amazon will verify that the driver is at the right car before remotely unlocking it. After delivery, the driver will lock your vehicle, and you get a final notification that the car is secure and delivery is complete.
Ok, I get it that Indian cars are definitely not certified for Amazon Key but think about it, there are more chances of your car getting smarter first than your home security in India. Mostly, because more and more car manufacturers want to stand out in the crowd and with new technology and increase in 4G coverage, we may see such things come to mobile platforms like cars first.
There were many videos of people asking delivery men to deliver things to the boot of their Tesla cars before too. This was because Teslas offer permanent connectivity. So opening their boots from another location was easy and the package was secure once placed in the boot too. Though Tesla may have ditched India on its move east, but more and more Indian cars are becoming smart – in connectivity terms.
Will this not be a solution to a lot of your issues – like when you’re not at home to accept a delivery or when you’re in a meeting and you cannot come out to accept a package? What about scenarios when you are far from a reachable location and your car is parked at a point with accessibility?
On the flip side, we Indians need to first sort out our parking woes before making plans to recieve deliveries in our cars. Anyways, we never expected over night or two-hour deliveries in India and Amazon made it possible. If we can imagine drone-deliveries in our kite-filled skies, why not this?
