I occasionally ask Alexa things that do not work but would be great if they did and this morning I actually got a useful response to my question… Is it a new feature or I just discovered it late? Check out the video:
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It was out about a month or so ago in the US when they made lock control available. (You can also tell Alexa to lock the door.) I was pretty happy about it and posted it at the time.
You cant ask her to Unlock it.
Not directly, but there are skills like Ask Alexa or even Alexa Helper that WILL allow you do to this…
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I was aware of the ability to lock doors and annoyed about not being able to unlock a door without using 3rd party skills… I was not aware though that I could get a lock/unlocked status. Up until now I was only aware of being able to request the temperature for any room where I have an ecobee sensor (again without using any 3rd party skills). I hope they expand this status polling.
I’m also able to get the status of my AC thermostat temperature via Alexa. I have a Sensi thermostat and that Alexa skill still doesn’t support status. But there is a custom DTH developed for Sensi that works great and now I can do it via the Alexa ST skill. I suspect we might get native locking functionality once Alexa can support some form of voice biometric.
Didn’t know this!
Scary to think that someone could come by your window and say, Alexa, Unlock the Front Door. Yikes!
Totally understand why this is not a feature but as stated, there are work-a-rounds but it would not be wise for Amazon to incorporate this. IMHO
I really do not think this is a real issue. If a thief wants to enter your home they can simply kick in the door or break a window. Also, for the thief to gain entry by telling your Alexa to open the door, the window likely needs to be open so the thief can simply enter through the window. I believe this is purely a case where Amazon is trying to avoid alarmist news reports and lawyers being over-cautious.
The good thing is that it is super easy to enable the function using awesome tools such as “Ask Alexa”, “Echosistant”, and so on.
Video showing how easy it is to kick in your door:
I do agree that it is a “small” issue but…it is still an issue.
I have 9 echo/dots covering most of the areas in my house. One could easily come to my back, front or side door and say Alexa, open the X door. Although that someone would have to know that I first had Alexa and second to know that it was possible to open the door with voice…
I’ve been using it since early March, so it’s been available at least that long.
My door locks automatically; I don’t need to tell Alexa to do that.
I would like to tell Alexa to unlock the door. Currently, I use ifttt for that and it works fine. But ifttt can occasionally get delays/hiccups, so a more direct method would be appreciated.
When Alexa gets voice identification, that will be doable.
With “Ask Alexa” you can lock and unlock without an issue. Check it out.
You don’t need IFTTT.
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create a virtual switch, and name it anything you like, such as “eagle.”
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create a routine that unlocks the door and set it up to run automatically when the virtual switch comes on.
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tell Alexa “Alexa, eagle on.”
It’s not the most graceful, but it works, and you have a basic security aspect in that someone would have to know exactly what you named the virtual switch in order to unlock your door. 
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Anything you can’t do with Alexa, virtual switch will make Alexa do it 
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Many things, but not all. AskAlexa or EchoSistant add a number of Advanced capabilities to the basic echo features. But if all you need is for a routine to run, virtual switch FTW. 
Michael, how do I get your Ask Alexa on “Show”?
It isn’t Show specific…Ask Alexa can be used on ANY Alexa device…it is just that tomorrow I will add some nice icons to the Show itself. I recommend waiting until tomorrow to install it, and until then, I REALLY recommend you read the manual as ALL of the installation gotchas are in here:
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Ask_Alexa
I recommend giving yourself a couple hours to install this as it is not easy if this is your first foray into Amazon AWS computing.
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And anything you don’t want to “turn on” with a virtual switch, EchoSistant can open it for you… Try “Open Sesame” with a virtual switch and see if it can do it… lol
Oh, and let’s not forget, EchoSistant can PIN protect your locks, thermostats, garage doors, and selected switches… on open, close, or both…
That way, no one can walk by the window and open the door.