Amazon copies Google; integrates ‘Announcement’ into Alexa

Published on April 6, 2018

Toward the end of last year, Google added a new feature to its smart-home speaker. After the update, the Home speaker could be put to use as an intercom. It appears that its arch-rival Amazon is planning on following the same footsteps. Five months later, the e-commerce giant is also rolling out a similar kind of functionality for its Alexa-powered smart-home speaker. According to the information provided by Amazon, the new feature is called Announcements.

Amazon

The Alexa is now updated with a feature called Announcements, which allows users to make one-way voice broadcasts to all the other Echo Best Price at Amazon devices within one’s household. In other words, if a user is living in a large home, they no longer need to raise their voices to get in touch with Alexa. Gone are the days wherein one would have to traipse from room to room to tell all the members of the family that the dinner is ready. One can only make use of the latest Announcement feature updated in Amazon’s Alexa.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Before the Announcement feature rolling out, Amazon’s Alexa consisted of a feature called Drop In. Users could apparently call another Echo device user through the new Drop-In feature. However, the Announcement feature is specially built to help users get in touch with the other members of the household. The primary objective it serves is the same as its name suggests. “Customers can simply say to their Echo device, ‘Alexa, announce that dinner is ready,’ and ‘Dinner is ready’ will then be announced in your voice to all other compatible Echo devices in your household,” Amazon said in a statement. You can also make an announcement using the phrases “Alexa, tell everyone…,” or “Alexa, broadcast…” The e-commerce platform started rolling the Announcement feature out for all of its customers earlier today. The feature is unfortunately only available in the U.S. and Canadian market.

As mentioned previously, Google had initially been rolled out such a feature last year. The search giant added this feature to its smart-home speaker back in November 2017. The feature functions the same way it does on Amazon Echo. Users are merely required to say, “Ok Google, broadcast it’s time for school!” and the user’s message will be delivered. The message notably will be broadcasted to all the Assistant-enabled speakers within one’s home. “Say ‘Ok Google, broadcast it’s time for school!’ and your message will broadcast to all Assistant-enabled speakers in your home,” Google Home Product Manager Alex Duong and Google Assistant Software Engineer Nam Do explain at the time.

According to the announcement made by Amazon, millions of people already have the feature accessible for the use of their Echo devices at home. If you are among the few to gain access to the feature, you can simply sync the Settings to play music simultaneously while you are announcing the feature. Amazon’s Alexa application can also be put to use to create a group with two or more Echo devices. Users can even give it different names such as, “downstairs.” Individuals have the freedom of saying, “Alexa, play Justin Bieber downstairs,” to start playing a particular Justin Bieber song on the whole of the first level.

Amazon and Google have been competing against each other for a very long time. Although Amazon is the leading technology giant in the smart-home speaker industry, Google Home is also rapidly picking up the pace with the former. In a surprising turn of events, it is Amazon that ended up copying Google Home’s feature into its speakers. Therefore, the competition is tough with equal ups and downs.

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