The marketplace and technology giant has now rolled out the first paid service in that space.
Amazon Alexa now has an elder care service, representing the first paid service the company has within that space.
The service was initially announced by the company back at its fall hardware event.
Amazon Alexa’s subscription elder care service is an expansion on the Alexa Care Hub that was already existing. The new service was launched to offer a minimally invasive strategy for using the voice assistant in association with the Echo speakers to both support seniors and make it easier for loved ones and/or other caregivers to keep tabs on them.
The service is called Alexa Together, and it is meant to make it easier for families to use the service in a way they’ve been doing essentially since the voice assistant first launched. People have been using the AI assistant to help them to make remote check-ins with their elderly loved ones. It has provided an electronic way for people to “drop in” on elderly family members and have been sharing their accounts to make it easier to make sure their loved ones are okay, even if that method was a little clunky. This has been particularly helpful for keeping watch on seniors when the phone isn’t being answered.
That said, Amazon Alexa wasn’t designed for monitoring loved ones, so this new service evolved.
Care Hub, now combined with Alexa Together have made it possible for the company to develop new features for customers to work these features into their digital assistant service. The outcome is an option that could potentially help people to support their elderly loved ones during the times when they are not physically in the room with them.
The service costs $19.99 per month or $199 per year. It is a replacement for the existing Care Hub service, which was free. With the additional fee, customers receive professional monitoring services as well as additional proactive features. New customers can receive the service for free for the first six months as a trial. Existing Care Hub customers will receive Amazon Alexa Together a full year for free.
