Amazon's Alexa Guard is finally here to monitor your home while you're away

Formally unveiled way back in September and made available by invitation only a couple of months after that, the very ingenious Alexa Guard feature is now rolling out more widely in the US at last. All you have to do to activate this functionality is remember to say "Alexa, I'm leaving" every single time you exit the premises of your house and want your digital assistant to keep its virtual ear to the ground.
After setting Guard to "away mode" with the aforementioned magic phrase, your Echo device will stay alert and send notifications to your phone if it detects the sound of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, or glass breaking. Obviously, you shouldn't panic as soon as you get a "smart alert", and instead try to determine if the danger detected by Alexa is actual cause for concern by listening to a 10-second audio recording from your house or even "drop in" on your Echo remotely to check exactly what its microphone is picking up.
By no means a replacement for a real security system, Alexa Guard can enhance the capabilities of popular setups from Ring and ADT, while also working in tandem with connected smart lights to discourage burglary attempts. Most importantly, the feature naturally doesn't cost a thing. The latest version of the mobile Alexa app lets you enable it from the "Settings" menu, where you'll find a Guard-dedicated subsection containing simple step-by-step setup instructions.
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