Cameras that transmit a video stream from a place in physical space to the device in your pocket makes visible what used to be unseeable. You leave your home in the morning, lock the door, and once you’ve left, you can no longer see what happens at or around your door. Yes, you could have CCTV recording for subsequent review and analysis, but if something only happens for a minute out of 12 hours, that requires a long time to review for non-standard variation. The standard state of “nothing is happening” can be ignored for as long as that remains the current state; it’s the exceptions that are interesting / critical / relevant. The unexpected visitor. The unwanted snooper. 

Video doorbells have changed what’s possible. Using motion detection (to implicitly signal a non-standard state) or physical interaction with sensors (to explicitly alert a non-standard state) enables the video camera on the door to stream its view to the owner’s phone or other device. Perhaps the owner is merely inside their house working on a project. Or out the back in the shed. Or in a far-off location at work, retrieving the children from school, or at the shopping centre. Wherever becomes less of a constraint, because wherever is now accessible. 

And then you add a Tesla, as in the video above, and a non-standard but expected variation of a package delivery. With no-one home and living on a busy London street, what does the owner instruct the delivery man to do with these expected items from Amazon? Leave them on the doorstep (and run the risk of theft)? Reschedule the delivery and request the driver to come back later? What about just linking up a bit of Tesla magic to create a new secure temporary storage location for delivering the package.

How cool is that!