BEING ABLE to purchase anything you want at the tap of a smartphone is one way in which technology is making our lives a lot easier. But having to be at home when that parcel is delivered is less convenient — particularly if you’re given the decidedly unhelpful ‘9am-6pm delivery window’, as many of us are out at work during the day.

Retailers these days often offer the chance to reschedule deliveries or the chance to pick an alternative delivery spot: neighbours’ houses or “safe places” outside the house, for example. But these aren’t ideal solutions. What happens if a cold-caller spots the package in your porch and makes off with it, for example? The parcel can be a tell-tale sign for would-be burglars that no-one is home, too.

Fortunately, technology is coming to the rescue again, as demonstrated by one savvy Tesla owner from London, UK.

Aidan O’Byrne posted the video above to Facebook with the comment: “Sometimes all the tech in your life can come together neatly. Not always, but sometimes…”

It shows an Amazon delivery driver coming to his door. Thanks to a video-enabled smart doorbell, O’Byrne could view the man and talk to him via a tablet PC.

Rather than ask the Amazon man to leave the packages somewhere outside his house, O’Byrne instructed him to put them in the boot of the Tesla sitting on his driveway and used the car’s app on his smartphone to remotely open the Model X’s rear hatch.

Once the goods were placed inside, O’Byrne used the app again to close and lock the boot, securely storing the packages until he returned home that evening.

Other makes and models of cars now come with cloud-based locking/unlocking via app, and having parcels delivered to the boot of cars is something Amazon itself is testing, in collaboration with Volvo. But no such deal is currently in place with Tesla; this was simply the work of a customer with a knack for solving problems and the right car for the job.

Smart indeed. It beats seeing if Tim and Janet at number 42 are home, anyway.

Tweet to @wdron Follow @wdron