Scout Security strengthens tie-up with Amazon, shares jump 50pc

Home security platform Scout Security (ASX:SCT) had some more Amazon news for the market this morning, and investors approved.

Scout said the ecommerce giant (which itself owns shares in SCT), has announced an expanded feature set for its Alexa Guard home monitoring system.

The expansion will open up an additional revenue channel for Scout’s Always On+ subscription service, which has an existing integration agreement with Amazon.

Shares in SCT climbed back to 11c in morning trade — an early gain of more than 50 per cent.

Amazon effect

The morning gain followed a similar path to SCT’s price action on August 19, when the stock surged by around 90 per cent after first announcing the Amazon partnership.

Today’s announcement detailed a build-out of the Alexa Guard platform, which uses the Amazon Echo device to detect unusual sounds such as smoke alarms or windows breaking.

As part of the existing integration, Scout Alarm customers with the Always On+ subscription can deploy functionality for a police dispatch once Alexa Guard has been activated.

But Amazon has now introduced a premium service — Alexa Guard Plus — and “has named Scout as one of a limited list of 2021 Guard Plus launch partners”, SCT said.

One of the key additions to the Guard Plus system is that it will have the capacity to detect potential intruders and send alerts to the Scout platform, SCT said.

It also has a deterrence feature, where the Echo is instructed to play the sound of a dog barking when outdoor cameras detect motion.

And users can also activate an emergency-call feature by verbally instructing the Echo to call for help, which will then “connect to emergency response agents in Scout’s monitoring centre”.

While the Alexa Guard system is provided at no cost to Scout’s Always On+ subscribers, both Amazon and SCT will charge additional fees for the upgraded version.

Scout said revenues from the deal are a bit hard to estimate at the moment, although the two sides have agreed to split them as part of a revenue-sharing arrangement (details of the split are yet to be determined).

Scout said the integrated Alexa Guard Plus network will be available in first quarter of 2021.