Google’s parent company Alphabet and powerhouse Amazon are looking at new ways to expand their reach into your home. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article touching on each company’s desire to build upon the success of their smart speaker assistants to provide new functionality in the form of voice calling.

That means your Amazon Echo or Google Home may soon serve as a central communication tool to call up your friends and relatives. Yes, your smart speaker may become a home phone.

Wow! Right?

Your Echo as Your Home Phone is Not Entirely Sexy

While it sounds amazing and full of promise on the surface, there are a few concerns that I can think of.

One particular problem is the issue of conducting the actual call. Sure, it’s cool to yell out, “Alexa, call Mom” but what happens when Mom answers? Suddenly the entire room can hear her yelling at you for not calling her for months and how you don’t care about her and…you get the idea.

For the smart speakers to truly serve as phones, Amazon and Google will have to figure out how to make the conversation go into personal mode. Perhaps integrating with wireless headphones? Until then, I’m not putting my conversation with Mom on full blast.

Also, will it work with your existing cell phone or will the device get its own number? If the latter, you quickly dive into the nastiness of carriers and more billing. Yikes, I don’t want another bill, especially for my speaker! And would Amazon really get back into the business of direct carrier relationships after their track record with mobile phones (Fire phone anyone?)

What about privacy? Will Google and Amazon suddenly have a full history of my phone calls, who I talked to, and the actual content of our conversation? According to the news, they are only looking at storing metadata about the call and not necessarily the full conversation. While I don’t really have any issues with them hearing my convo, I’m sure plenty of folks will be a bit apprehensive.

It Could Pave the Way for Stronger Adoption

While there are some concerns and technical challenges lying ahead for both companies, this sort of feature could elevate the value of the device. The smart home market is on the cusp of wider adoption and functionality such as this could drive adoption even higher.

I love the fact both companies are looking at the devices as a brand new platform and one that can be expanded to offer future functionality – even capabilities that typically wouldn’t be associated with the technology. This is good for their bottom line and great for feature-hungry consumers.