A smart home device has saved a woman involved in a violent domestic dispute in Tijeras, New Mexico, by calling authorities to the scene of the dispute.

The dispute is alleged to have involved Eduardo Barros, who was house-sitting with his girlfriend and her daughter when an argument became violent. At some point during the assault, Barros is alleged to have said, “Did you call the sheriffs?” The resident’s smart home device interpreted as a request to call emergency services, which it subsequently did.

Emergency 911 receivers overheard the violent dispute and dispatched negotiators and the local SWAT team, who after negotiating for several hours arrested Barros on assault, battery and firearms charges. The woman is said to have sustained injuries but was not taken to a hospital, while her daughter was unharmed.

“The unexpected use of this new technology to contact emergency services has possibly helped save a life,” Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a statement reported by ABC News. “This amazing technology definitely helped save a mother and her child from a very violent situation.”

The smart home device, previously named as a Google Home but since revised in reports to a more generic device, produced a positive outcome, but there are still concerns such devices could accidentally summon authorities when they are not needed, such as when they are triggered by television shows or innocuous remarks.

There are no examples to date of a SWAT team turning up to a house after an Amazon Echo or Google Home device accidentally called them while someone was playing “Rambo” on the television. But there are examples of smart home devices erroneously undertaking actions, including an incident in January in which Amazon’s Alexa started ordering people dollhouses after hearing its name on TV.

There are also privacy concerns related to such devices in that they may record everything they hear. In December, police in Bentonville, Arkansas, requested that Amazon.com Inc. release information that may have been recorded by an Echo device in the home of a suspected murderer.

Photo: FASTILY/Wikimedia Commons