Locked in: Amazon, Alexa and the connected home of tomorrow

Georgia Vance and Zaedyn Bean, 3, of South San Francisco, use Amazon Alexa's voice recognition to turn on a television in a model home on Mare Island in Vallejo, Calif., on Thursday, May 10, 2018. Homebuilder Lennar has teamed up with Amazon to offer homes with Alexa technology included. (Anda Chu/Bay Area News Group/TNS)

VALLEJO, California: From the outside, homebuilder Lennar's model home in Vallejo could be any other house in a new suburban development. But that's where the similarities end and the future begins, courtesy of a new smart-home partnership with Amazon. 

This week, Amazon and Lennar began showing off what they are calling the Amazon Experience Centre, a pre-wired, voice-activated smart home at a North Bay Lennar housing development, along with similar model homes in seven other locations across the country.