Google Home Getting Multi-User Support Soon; Amazon Making Voice-Activated Alexa Camera

It appears Google is working on a new feature for its voice-activated smart speaker Google Home. A teardown of its latest update reveals multiple account support is underway. Meanwhile, Amazon could be releasing a voice-activated Alexa camera soon.

On Thursday, Android Police reported about what it found after looking into the APK of Google Home’s latest update. The teardown revealed a couple of empty strings that act as placeholders for what Google is working on. The prefix “mu” — short for multi-user — in the names of these strings provide proof that multi-user is coming to the device soon. The Android-centric news site claims the strings would soon be used to launch a feature that would allow consumers to add multiple accounts to Google Home and possibly set up voice recognition profiles for the users.

Although these strings are clearly suggesting multi-user support, there is no telling if Google will push this feature to its smart speakers anytime soon. For now, Google has added support for Google Home users to view the list of alarms and timers set on the speaker via the Home app. Users can access the list from a smartphone and do some changes to the alarms and timer from there.

Meanwhile, Amazon is now rumored to be developing a different kind of AI hardware. AFTVnews exclusively reported about a small home security camera it found on Amazon’s website.The site claims that this camera could be Amazon’s new creation that is going to rival the Nest Cam. Unlike the latter, the device could be running the Alexa AI assistant, making it a smart camera instead of just being an indoor security camera.

The camera that AFTVnews spotted appears to have 4 infrared LEDs for night vision. Surrounding its camera lens is a blue light ring that’s reminiscent of the light ring on the Amazon Echo. Atop the device are two holes that are believed to be microphones. And, of course, it has built-in speakers. Given all of these specs and features, it’s not that hard to imagine that Amazon could be introducing a smart camera soon.