August Access battles Amazon Key for in-home delivery

Back at the end of October, Amazon revealed a new service called Key. With Amazon Key, you can schedule in-home delivery using a specific smart lock offered as part of the service, thereby preventing your packages from being stolen while they wait on your front porch. A service like Amazon Key has been suggested and even rumored for almost as long as smart locks have been a thing, so it should come as no surprise that we're seeing competitors spring up before Amazon Key really gets off the ground.

August announced a new service today called August Access. As August is a major player in the smart lock space, that portion of in-home delivery is already taken care of. August has teamed up with Deliv for the actual delivery of packages, which will immediately make in-home delivery accessible for all of Deliv's retail partners.

The kicker here is that Deliv already operates as a last-mile fulfillment business is 1,400 cities, giving August Home access to a pretty vast market. Amazon Key, on the other hand, launched in November in just 37 cities across the US, so August Home has the option to ramp up Access quickly to ultimately serve more customers than Amazon Key is capable of.

August Access will operate in much the same was a Amazon Key. When August Access customers buy something from a business that Deliv serves, they'll be given the option of authorizing in-home delivery. August will then generate a one-time passcode that's given to the Deliv driver, who will use it to unlock the door and leave the package inside if no one answers when they arrive. If you want to make sure everything is on the up-and-up, you'll be able to watch the whole delivery process through the August app.

Because of the way August Access works, it sounds like you'll need the August Smart Keypad, but beyond that, August says that this service will be compatible with the family of smart locks it offers, including those under the Yale brand. We're not sure when exactly August Access will be available to end users, but we'll keep an ear to the ground for more information, so stay tuned for that.