Amazon’s Alexa voice service made its debut with the company’s Echo line of smart speakers, but these days it’s also available on tablets, TVs, and other gadgets from Amazon and third-party companies.
A few companies have built Alexa into wearables like smartwatches and headphones in the past. But we’re probably going to see a lot more Alexa-enabled wearables.
That’s because Amazon has just introduced a new Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit, and the company says device makers including Bose, Beyderynamic, Jabra, iHome, and Linkplay are already developing products with it.
Amazon’s new kit lets companies add Alexa to just about any device with audio capabilities and Bluetooth wireless support. There’s a catch though: you’ll need to have the Alexa app installed on your Android or iOS phone to use Alexa on your headphones, smartwatch, or other mobile accessories.
That’s because the solution offloads a lot of the work to your phone. The upshot is that device makers don’t need to add complicated features to their earbuds or other gadgets. The down side is that you can’t use Alexa if you leave your phone at home.
Still, the move makes sense for Amazon. The company’s Echo line of products currently dominate the smart speaker space, but rivals Google and Apple have their own voice assistants that are baked into Android and iOS. There are also wearables and headphones that work with both Siri and Google Assistant.
Amazon hasn’t had as much success launching its own smartphones, so if the company wants you to use Alexa both at home and on the go, baking hands-free Alexa support into wearable devices could be a good way to tempt users into installing the Alexa apps on their phones.
Amazon blew it with the Fire Phone. All it’s problems would be solved if it just had a mobile phone platform.
It would probably rule the world.
Always on eh? That should help reduce battery life a fair bit
From the Google Play store:
This app has access to:
Device & app history
retrieve running apps
Identity
find accounts on the device
add or remove accounts
Contacts
find accounts on the device
read your contacts
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
SMS
send SMS messages
Phone
read phone status and identity
Photos/Media/Files
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Storage
read the contents of your USB storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Camera
take pictures and videos
Microphone
record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
read phone status and identity
Other
power device on or off
interact across users
receive data from Internet
view network connections
create accounts and set passwords
pair with Bluetooth devices
access Bluetooth settings
connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
disable your screen lock
full network access
change your audio settings
run at startup
draw over other apps
use accounts on the device
control vibration
prevent device from sleeping
Updates to may automatically add additional capabilities within each group.
The NSA and GCHQ would like to thank you for downloading this app.