TRI Pointe Group, a family of homebuilders, announced it recently partnered with Amazon to begin constructing its new smart homes.
The homebuilder includes six operating brands across eight states: Maracay in Arizona, Pardee Homes in California and Nevada, Quadrant Homes in Washington, Trendmaker Homes in Texas, TRI Pointe Homes in California and Colorado and Winchester Homes in Maryland and Virginia.
The builder will now begin to offer homebuyers smart homes that feature Amazon Alexa. The features will include:
- Echo, Echo Show, Echo Spot, Echo Dot or Fire TV Cube
- Home activation appointment with an Amazon Expert and Amazon activation support
- Eero Home WiFi System – a premium offering of eero and two beacons that provides wireless internet coverage
- Leviton or Lutron Smart Switches
- Honeywell Lyric 2 Smart Thermostat or Ecobee Smart Thermostat
- Ring Video Doorbell Pro
- Samsung SmartThings Smart Hub or Wink Smart Hub
- LiftMaster or Genie WiFi Garage Door Opener
- Schlage or Kwikset Smart Door Lock
- Rain Bird Smart Irrigation WiFi Controller
- Rinnai Tankless Water Heater Recirculation Pump
This isn’t the company’s first venture into smart home technology. It originally partnered with Amazon through its Seattle-based Quadrant Homes in April this year. Now, it is expanding the partnership to its other five subsidiaries.
“From enjoying entertainment to locking the front door and even managing sprinkler systems, we hear that customers love the simplicity and convenience Alexa brings to their everyday lives,” said Sarah Zenz, general manager of Amazon Experts. “We’re pleased to see TRI Pointe Group expanding to offer Alexa smart home experiences to even more customers.”
But TRI Pointe Group isn’t the first builder to incorporate smart home technology and it certainly won’t be the last. About 32% of U.S. homes will be smart homes in 2018, and that number is expected to hit 53.1% by 2022, according to Statista, a portal that collects statistics and studies from more than 22,500 sources.
Back in May, Amazon announced that it is partnering with Lennar, the nation’s largest homebuilder, to launch what it calls “Amazon Experience Centers.”
The “Experience Centers” are basically showrooms for all of Amazon’s smart home products. But instead of Amazon opening up its own brick-and-mortar showrooms, it partnered with Lennar to trick out model homes with Amazon gadgets.
Amazon’s partnerships with builders is just its latest move in its slow venture into the housing market. Last July, the online monolith quietly tested (and then removed) a feature that would connect a potential homebuyer or seller with a real estate agent.
And earlier this year, Amazon began exploring a move into mortgage lending. In fact, HousingWire’s Editor-in-Chief, Jacob Gaffney, reported in March that Amazon is looking to hire the head of a soon-to-be-announced mortgage division.
Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before you will be saying, “Alexa, get me a mortgage.”
