Over the past few years I’ve seen a growing number of smart speakers and mesh networking gear at the Consumer Electronics Show. So it’s not surprising at all that somebody decided to combine both of those technologies into a single product.
The Asus Lyra Voice is a tri-band WiFi router that’s also a wireless speaker with Amazon’s Alexa voice service built-in. It also supports the Asus AiMesh system which means you can pair it with other supported Asus routers to create a single WiFi network that extends throughout your home.
It should be available this month for $220.
Lyra Voice is an AC2200 router that you can use as a standalone device, as an extender, or as part of a mesh network.
It also has stereo speakers and supports Bluetooth, allowing you to use it as a wireless speaker for your phone, laptop, or other gadgets.
Or you can use it as an Alexa device to stream music, news, or other content from the internet, get answers to questions, or control smart home gear.
The device measures 10.6″ x 3″ x 3″ and weighs about 2.1 pounds.
Pretty soon it will be difficult to buy anything without a voice assistant built in. I could probably start a business disabling these “features” so people can have “dumb” products that don’t spy on them. I wonder if I would get hit with DMCA warnings (or some such government warnings) for messing with their functionality.
Worse, you will need a GPDR certification of some sort to prove that you can take responsibility for ensuring the devices will not store records. Because nobody else will take that responsibility!