Just a quick post because last night, I honestly thought someone stole an Amazon delivery from my porch. It turned out not to be true, but for those with smart doorbells or smart locks, this could be an issue and I’m just trying to help.

So let’s get into it.

I had a couple of things scheduled to arrive yesterday. The “big stuff” came overnight and arrived first thing in the morning, but there were a couple of small things that were supposed to “be here by 10pm”.

My wife and I had to go to the store and we always go out to eat on Sunday and since Amazon was showing a delivery time between 6pm-8pm and we’d be back by then, we figured we’d just  go. So off we went, had a nice dinner and were at the grocery store, almost done, when I got an alert from my doorbell telling me that Amazon had delivered at 5:12.

Whatever. We just kept going and about 10 minutes later, I got another alert that said that the package had been picked up.

Uh-oh. Now as I said, it was small stuff, worth a couple of bucks at best, so we didn’t panic. I was mad, but not furious. I could just order it again and it would be delivered the next day. However, when we got home, the packages were just sitting there on the porch like nothing had happened.

Almost. We feed a lot of neighborhood cats and apparently, one of them had knocked one of the packages over, or maybe it was the wind. I could go back and look at the video, but it’s not really important. The doorbell interpreted that movement as a pick up, even though the packages were clearly still there. Granted, we could have looked while we were at the store but we were trying to get done and didn’t bother. I was just pissed that I’d have to order the couple of small things again.

So if you have a video doorbell or a video door lock that watches out for package deliveries, file that away in the back of your mind. If you ever get a stolen package alert, it might not have actually been stolen. It might have been some random animal or the wind shifting your packages and your doorbell/lock just interpreted it as a pick-up. At least look at the video. Yes, you could have porch pirates, but it’s possible that everything is fine too.

Just my helpful hint of the day. Have a good holiday season.