2024-05-17T03:12:46-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150169570/what-is-it-like-to-live-in-an-alexa-powered-smart-home-community Alexander Walter 2019-11-11T13:48:00-05:00 >2019-11-11T13:48:13-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/a4/a4fec67339527ba77500b178e7a6ffe7.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Living in a smart home neighborhood, the Fergusons experience both convenience and surveillance. And that's typical in Black Diamond, where Lennar Homes offers smart homes as part of a 4,800 unit development that includes other builders. This neighborhood isn't a one off. There are smart home developments in suburbs outside of cities such as Miami and San Francisco. Lennar is making Amazon tech standard on each of the 45,000 homes it builds this year.</p></em><br /><br /><p>Families in a Lennar Homes development in the Seattle suburb of Black Diamond are settling into their newly built and Amazon smart technology-equipped homes &mdash; some to their excitement, others fearing constant surveillance.<br></p> <p>"In this community, there are smart homes on one side of the street and houses without the technology on the other," KUOW's Joshua McNichols and Carolyn Adolph tell in their <a href="https://kuow.org/stories/primed-season-3-episode-3-part-2" target="_blank"><em>Primed</em> podcast episode</a> about the&nbsp;Amazon smart homes in Black Diamond. "The smart homes all have Ring doorbells, with video cameras. Kelli Ferguson says when she walks down her street, she crosses over to the side without the smart homes. She wants to avoid popping up her neighbors&rsquo; cameras."</p>