Although Amazon Alexa is most prominent on smart speakers, we've seen the AI expand to the likes of smartphones, thermostats, and more over the past couple years. However, one frontier that Alexa's never been very prominent in is that of wearables. A handful of smartwatches have launched with Alexa built-in, but for the most part, these have been few and far between. Starting in 2018, Amazon wants to change that.
On the official Alexa blog, Amazon announced its new Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit. The main goal of the Kit is to make it considerably easier for developers to integrate Alexa into their wearable devices, and the way this is done is actually pretty ingenious.
Rather than making developers load Alexa directly onto their gadgets, the Kit allows wearable tech to seamlessly connect to the Alexa Voice Service on the Amazon Alexa app on Android and iOS phones. Essentially, voice commands you issue on your wearable are sent to your phone, the response from Alexa is obtained, and this is then relayed through your watch, headphones, etc. This does require your phone to be connected to your wearables in order for Alexa to work, but it makes adding the AI to these devices much easier.
The Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit won't be launching until "later this year", but Amazon's already working with the likes of Bose, Beyerdynamic, Jabra, and iHome to release future products with this tech. In other words, it won't be too much longer before we start seeing Alexa-powered headphones, watches, and fitness trackers flood the market.
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