BardTech

The post Alexa is now available on 20,000 devices appeared first on BardTech . That large number comes courtesy of Amazon’s press event at IFA in Berlin this week. It’s an impressive jump, given that the company was only boasting around 4,000 the last time it reported a number at the beginning of the year. “Just this year,” exec Daniel Rausch told the crowd, as reported by CNET . “Alexa has sung Happy Birthday millions of times to customers, and she’s told over 100 million jokes.” That’s a lot jokes — at least one or two of them must have been good, right? Alexa confirmed the number with TechCrunch, noting that Alexa is on “20k+ devices you can control with Alexa, from 3500+ brands.” Amazon’s own devices only make up a small portion of the overall number, of course. There just aren’t that many Echo smart speakers, the Fire TV and Fire tablets. But the company has been making an extremely aggressive push to get the assistant on as many third-party devices as possible. In many ca...

The post More Alexa ‘blueprints’ arrive, offering customizable voice apps for families and roommates appeared first on BardTech . Earlier this year, Amazon rolled out a new feature that allowed Alexa device owners to create their own custom skills using preconfigured templates. Today, Amazon is expanding Alexa Blueprints, as the service is called, to include a handful of new templates designed for families and roommates. These include a chore chart template, a house rules template for roommates, and others. The Chore Chart template allows families to schedule and track children’s weekly chores, and even lets multiple kids (or anyone, really) compete to see who has done the most. Parents first configure the skill with a list of weekly chores and who those chores are assigned to. Throughout the week, the kids can log their completed chores by asking Alexa. (“Alexa, ask Chore Chart to log a chore.”). Anyone can then check the progress by asking for the “Chore Score.” Another bluep...

The post Alexa routers are a thing now appeared first on BardTech . Some things are inevitable — stock market fluctuations, thunderstorms, your favorite band reuniting to offset poor financial planning. And then there’s Alexa. Amazon’s smart assistant is slowly making its way onto every aspect of of the smart home, and Google’s own offering isn’t too far behind. As far as these things go, routers make a lot of sense. They’re a key part of stay connected, and in the case of mesh ones, they’re everywhere. So why not have them do double duty, right? Clearly Huawei and Netgear were struck by the same thought, and Amazon was more than happy to oblige.  Both companies debuted a take on the concept this week at IFA. Huawei’s AI Cube, which despite not being a cube at all, is the more straight forward of the two offerings. The device looks remarkably like a Google Home (and, by extension, a Glade air freshener, but I digress) and does LTE via a 4G SIM card, along with both the 2.4GHz a...

The post Marshall launches its first Alexa/Google Assistant smart speakers appeared first on BardTech . Marshall Speakers are hardly the first third-party manufacturer to hop on the smart speaker bandwagon, but the company’s got a strong case for bringing the best design into the mix. Announced at IFA in Berlin this week, the Acton II and Stanmore II continue the line’s legacy of cribbing heavily from Marshall’s iconic guitar amp designs. It’s not original, really, but it’s a sort of timeless design that should fit in pretty comfortably most living rooms. The speakers are both launching in the fall with Amazon Alexa on-board. Google Assistant will be arriving later in the year, letting them do double assistant duty. A cheeky bit of ad copy on that front from Marshall, Just like a roadie, Alexa is there to help while you’re busy doing other things. Can’t remember the name of a song? Say the lyrics and Alexa will find it for you. Looking for information on when your favourite band g...

The post Bose takes on the HomePod with a $400 Alexa smart speaker appeared first on BardTech . The latest Echo devices are a touch more premium than their predecessors, but Amazon hasn’t gone out of its way to compete with Apple’s HomePod head-on. And why bother, really, when hardware partners are willing to do the heavy lifting? Bose is certainly making a compelling case with t he Home Speaker 500 . The compact smart speaker finds the audio company going all in on the smart assistant market, along with a pair of new soundbars that also sport Alexa functionality. The company has cautiously embraced Amazon’s smart assistant in recent years, but the trio of new products are the first Bose speakers to feature Alexa built-in, rather than relying on a skill. The Home Speaker is a fairly compact device, measuring 8 x 6 x 4 inches, with two custom drivers built-in, designed to reflect sound off of walls. The looks are a little lacking, but the sound is really what counts.  There a...