Your House Is Becoming Amazon's House

 Internet-of-Things  

Quietly and deliberately Amazon is getting into your home.  New home automation features unveiled for the Amazon Echo device should make the device even more desirable, and not incidentally, make it easier for you to send orders though to Amazon.

B efore it is even widely available, Amazon's Echo digital assistant speaker has added a new home automation connectivity that could be a real game-changer. Along with streaming music from the cloud, checking the weather, and asking questions on Wikipedia, users can now control WeMo switches and Philips Hue lights using their voice.

Echo can be used to switch on the lamp before getting out of bed, turning on the fan or space heater while reading in your favorite chair, or dimming the lights from the couch to watch a movie - all using Echo's always-on far-field voice recognition capability. WeMo switches can already be controlled via smartphone apps, but with Echo, you won't have to get your phone out of your pocket, unlock it, open the app and use the control.

If your Keurig brewer were set up, you could even pretend you were Captain Picard — "Alexa, tea, Earl Grey, hot!"

Set-up of the connected devices looks to be straightforward. If your smart home products are on the same Wi-Fi network as your Echo and you have identified them appropriately in their respective apps, you simply need to ask Echo to discover your appliances.

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So far the number of connected devices is limited, but as the Internet-of-Things (IoT) continues to develop it is not hard to see Amazon updating the Echo's capabilities further.

Along with Amazon's new Dash Button, the device that lets you re-order supplies with a single click, Amazon’s is unveiling its strategy of insinuating itself into your home. The Dash Button comes with a reusable adhesive and a hook so you can hang, stick, or place it right where you need it. Keep Dash Button handy in the kitchen, bath, laundry, or anywhere you store your favorite products. When you're running low, simply press Dash Button, and Amazon quickly delivers household favorites so you can skip the last-minute trip to the store.

As Forrester Research connected home analyst Frank Gillett told Wired, “Amazon has the unique advantage that the Amazon Echo can suggest—or eventually be certified to work with—the products they sell on their Home Automation page.”

With these releases, Amazon may have just got a leg up on the competition in the Internet-Things race.



SOURCE  Wired

By 33rd Square

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