Amazon's Care Hub - the easy way for families to look out for Senior Citizens

For years we have talked about some great use cases through the possibility of IoT and Tech, from looking after/monitoring your own home, keeping a watchful eye over elderly relatives, pets and so much more.

We have seen great examples with folks like NEOS, smart home monitoring, (now part of Aviva) and Birdie, from Kamet, the seed fund of AXA and of course LeakBot from HomeServe, also now embedded into many other packages from the good folks at HomeServe.

The insurance use case for these to me is crystal clear whilst at the same time providing independence for senior citizens and peace of mind for relatives.  Not to mention, given the global pandemic we all find ourselves within, the need to keep an eye out for those isolating or alone is critical. 

However, as with any of these, scale matters!  So, the thing that's currently going through my mind, and to be fair for any of these new propositions is - can they be independently successful without one of the big tech distribution platforms to deliver it to the end customer?  Is the cost of customer acquisition too much or can we make it alone? 

Is this another example of full end to vertical integration? What do you think?

As an aside, I'm looking at updating our home alarm, and again - the answer seems to point to Amazons Ring connected home alarm.  Is there anything they can't do?  I mean if IKEA make Houses, then why not Amazon Cars?