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Alexa, Build Me a House
Voice-controlled smart homes are now on Amazon’s roadmap, as demand for cheaper prefab houses grows
Vincent Paguia’s new house caused quite a spectacle when it arrived in his neighborhood in the beach town of Half Moon Bay, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. It took just three hours and some very heavy machinery to crane all the ready-made modules of his home into place, lifting them off the back of two semis that pulled up in front of his lot. The new 1,300-square-foot family home had been built in sections in the factory and arrived complete with faucets, kitchen appliances, wood floors and shower heads. It’s a fully functioning smart home, equipped with Amazon Echo-controlled lights, Nest-controlled heat, air-conditioning, and five internet-connected Ring security cameras.
Plant Prefab, the company behind Paguia’s new home, is one half of Amazon’s deepest partnership yet with a housing firm. The e-commerce giant had already worked with the regional construction group TRI Pointe, and Lennar, one of the largest home construction companies in the United States, to integrate smart home technologies into new builds. But Amazon went further with Plant Prefab, investing $6.7 million (along with the VC firm Obvious Ventures, which was co-founded by Medium CEO Ev Williams) in 2018 through its Alexa Fund, which backs companies that are developing uses for voice technologies and A.I. prefabricated homes are an intriguing proposition for Amazon, a company that already controls a powerful distribution network and sells anything you could want for your home. Could “Amazon home delivery” really mean just that?
Based in Rialto, California, Plant Prefab integrates smart home features into all the models in its Living Homes range, including a Ring video doorbell, Nest smart thermostat and smart lighting system like Lutron. Homeowners can use either Amazon Echo or Google Home to control the devices.
Homes range from a 406-square-foot accessory dwelling unit for $112,000, to a 2,090-square-foot three bedroom, two bathroom home for $501,600. Plant Prefab also works with star architects like Yves Behar, Ray Kappe and the collective Brooks + Scarpa to create high-end custom models. While most of Plant Prefab’s designs are angular and modern, prefabricated…
