How to prep your trunk and garage for Amazon Key delivery

Image: myq/amazon

We’re truly living in the future.

While you’re away from home, your car, garage, or front hallway can become a delivery locker for your online Amazon purchases — how convenient.

While the whole point of Amazon’s Prime delivery service straight to your trunk, garage, or home is to make online shopping as easy as possible, you still have to make sure you’re set up for the service that brings it all together: Amazon Key. That convenience doesn’t just happen without some legwork.

Before Prime Day(s) next week, you’ll need some supplies and preparation to have your packages waiting for you. Here’s what you need for different delivery destinations. For all Key deliveries you have to first download the Key by Amazon app, available for Android and iOS devices and have a Prime membership or trial (or student account and some other types of Amazon memberships). 

Trunk

First up for Amazon Key In-Car delivery you need to have a connected car that Amazon can communicate with for the delivery. That means only certain, newer cars have the trunk option, including 2015 and newer Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Volvo vehicles with OnStar and On Call service plans. Ford 2017 and later models with FordPass Connect and Lincoln 2018 and later models with Lincoln Connect can also accept packages. Check here to see if your car can turn into a drop-off location.

Once you’ve got the Key app set up and you’ve selected In-Car delivery, make sure your car is within two bocks of the shipping address you put down. For delivery to your trunk you can’t park in a multi-story garage, underground garage, or any private, gated lots.

This is just common decency, but make sure your trunk has enough space available to place a package and isn’t overflowing with random items and trash once the delivery worker opens the trunk. It’s the little things.

Also good to know, if you have an In-Car delivery set up, you can’t also have a home or garage delivery. You need to pick one spot to have your items dropped off.

Garage

For your home garage, you can fill out this quick form to see if garage deliveries are possible where you are and with the type of garage you have. 

If you have a Chamberlain myQ connected garage that you can control from your smartphone, you’re good to go and don’t need to modify or add any new equipment to your garage. If not, then you’ll need a smart garage hub, which is a WiFI-enabled garage door opener. Once you have a myQ account you can link your garage to the Key app. 

It’s not required, but if you want to monitor and see the delivery (and make sure the garage door was indeed closed on the way out) you can add an Amazon Cloud Cam security camera to your garage set-up. But it has to be the “Key edition” version – otherwise you’ll need an adapter cable for your non-Key camera. 

Amazon guarantees deliveries in your garage will be placed out of the path of the car, so make sure your garage isn’t crammed with stuff and there’s a good spot for a package.

Home

For the rest of us, Amazon deliveries can still come straight to us, but through the front door. For this you need a smart lock and you can hook it up to Amazon’s Ring doorbells and front-door cameras if you already have those. Cameras aren’t required for home deliveries, but if you want to keep an eye on who’s going in and out of your house, then you can set it up. 

Again, you need to make sure these type of deliveries can happen in your neighborhood and there’s also the issue of door compatibility to check on. Your door has to have a standard deadbolt and a separate handle and lock. The door also has to lock into place when closed normally. 

Then you can select at-home delivery after you buy items online and through the Key app keep track of your order. It may be invasive for some, but at least your packages won’t languish on the front steps.