New Voice Assistants for Smart Home

The year 2020 is confirmed as a year of novelties and previews for Smart Speakers that present a strong growth trend in terms of diffusion and use. The three biggest players in the market are paying more and more attention to Smart Home thanks to devices that allow the voice control of the Smart products at home in complete security. This is a great advantage for those who own or want a Smart Home. All BTicino Smart products for the management of lights, shutters, energy and temperature are compatible with voice assistants and offer the possibility to control the electrical system and all the connected functions comfortably using voice commands with Amazon, Google and Apple assistants. Recently, just Amazon, Google and Apple have introduced and presented to the market great innovations in this field through dedicated digital events.

At the end of September Amazon announced, among many new features, its new voice control devices. The entire line of Echo devices radically changes design, improves the artificial intelligence of Alexa (thanks to the new AZ1 Neural Edge processor) and the audio quality. The new design of Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Dot With Clock becomes completely spherical with a fabric top surface and a colored LED line at the bottom. For the first time, the Echo includes a Smart Home hub, with Zigbee support and Bluetooth LE connectivity. Echo and Echo Dot are already available in pre-order and should be shipped from Amazon by the end of the year.

A few days later is Google to launch new products: among them Nest Audio, the new Smart speaker. Again, this is a device with a very different aesthetic, rectangular and thin, and improved audio quality. The device is able to automatically adjust the equalization according to the different multimedia content and it adapts to any background noise in the house, so that you can always listen to the Google Assistant and control the Smart products at home through voice commands. It also uses 70% recycled plastic. The product is already on sale in 21 countries.

Finally, it was Apple that presented its new products. The main innovation for the Smart Home is HomePod Mini, a powerful Smart speaker that promises a Smart Home experience of comfort, convenience and security. Thanks to Siri, HomePod Mini offers a personalized and perfectly integrated experience to iPhone users and works in perfect synergy with all Apple devices. HomePod Mini also takes care of the environment in both components and packaging. From mid November the product will only be available in the USA, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Spain and the UK. Subsequently in China, Mexico and Taiwan. For the other countries there is no a release date yet.