Alexa to greet people via 'Doorbell' now

San Francisco: Amazon is adding Alexa to its Ring Video Doorbell Pro, giving it the ability to talk to people when they visit your home. The feature is called Alexa Greetings, which requires a Ring Protect subscription that starts at $3 a month.

According to The Verge, enabling the feature can let Alexa ask your visitors what they want, and they can choose to leave a video recording as a message.

If they're a delivery person, Alexa will be able to tell them where to leave the packages -- assuming the delivery person is willing to talk to your robotic doorbell, the report said on Thursday.

The company is also announcing a Quick Replies feature, which should work on most of its doorbells without needing that subscription (though the company's cheapest doorbell, the $60 Ring Video Doorbell Wired, isn't getting that feature either).

The feature lets you choose a canned response such as "we can't answer the door right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, you can do it now" or "please leave the package outside." Lastly, Amazon is also bringing a motion warning to some of its doorbells and cameras, which will audibly tell anyone around that Ring is recording if it detects motion. All the new features can be turned on or off in the Ring app.

The announcements come at a time when the company is both receiving criticism for working with police to provide footage captured by Ring cameras and attempting to increase the cameras' appeal to privacy-centric users by testing end-to-end encryption support.