Amazon's slumber party

"Alexa, tell me how I slept last night." Amazon, the company that likely knows a whole lot about what you buy, is making more moves to know more about what you do inside your own home — even when you’re unconscious. The company was recently [granted a waiver]( from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a “Radar Sensor” that can track people’s movements from a short distance (in case you didn’t know, the FCC is responsible for granting access to airwaves in the United States). Amazon told the FCC that it intends to use this sensor for “contactless sleep tracing functionalities.” In other words, Amazon wants to watch you sleep. Depending on my feelings about the watcher, I typically find the idea of someone watching me sleep to be romantic or creepy. But [Amazon says]( it doesn’t mean to be either: The company simply wants to use the technology to make users healthier by “improv[ing] consumers’ awareness and management of [sleep hygiene](” and “allow[ing] consumers to recognize potential sleep issues,” based on how much and how often they move in bed. Assuming all goes according to plan and Amazon does come out with such a device — or perhaps integrates it into its existing products, like Echos — it won’t be the company’s first foray into consumer health. That’s a space that Amazon, along with its Big Tech competitors, has been moving into for some time. Apple has its Health app; Google bought Fitbit, has been [making deals]( with hospitals to use patient data to power health algorithms, and has Verily, [a life sciences company]( that does a confusing number of things; and Facebook is reportedly developing a [wearable health tracker](. For its part, Amazon recently rolled out its [Halo band](, which analyzes photos of your nearly naked body to tell you if you [weigh too much]( and listens to your voice to tell you if you [sound too angry](. It also tracks your steps, heart rate, and sleep (though not, apparently, with the kind of precision Amazon says those Radar Sensors are necessary for). As Gizmodo’s Shoshana Wodinsky [points out](, it’s far from certain that devices that monitor movements during sleep can give any usable insights about someone's sleep quality, so the benefits to the consumer are dubious. Amazon, on the other hand, gets that much more intimate information about its customers. If you combine that with data it gets from Halo bands, Echo [smart speakers](, [Ring]( [cameras](, the many things you buy and view using Prime, and Whole Foods purchases — all Amazon products and companies — well, that’s a pretty complete picture of what you do and who you are, inside and outside your home, on- and offline, day and night. Oh, and don’t forget Sidewalk, which Amazon [forced onto Echo devices last month]( and turns your neighborhood into an internet-sharing mesh network by default. While this new sleep radar technology has some concerned about the immediate privacy implications, I’ve talked to more than a few experts who are more worried about how Amazon and its competitors might use the data they accumulate now years down the road, for things we didn’t even know were possible — let alone how our data could be exploited to power them. Something to consider when deciding if you want to invite Amazon over for a slumber party or not. To leave you all on a more positive, less dystopian note: Amazon also says its radars could be used to help people with mobility and speech issues activate their devices without having to speak or physically touch them, for instance by making certain movements with their bodies. 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