Speaker can answer questions

6th July 2015

Amazon

Jordan Mulcare

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Designed around voice recognition, Amazon Echo is hands-free and always on. With seven microphones and beam-forming technology, Echo can hear from across the room, even while music is playing. It is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound. Echo connects to Alexa, a cloud-based voice service, to provide information, answer questions, play music, read the news and check sports scores or the weather. All you have to do is ask. Echo begins working as soon as it detects the wake word. Alexa or Amazon can be picked as the wake word.

Tucked under Echo's light ring is an array of seven microphones. These sensors use beam-forming technology to hear from any direction. With enhanced noise cancellation, Echo can hear a question even while it's playing music. It uses on-device keyword spotting to detect the wake word. When Echo detects the wake word, it lights up and streams audio to the cloud, where we leverage the Alexa Voice Service to recognise and respond to a request.

Alexa, the brain behind Echo, is built in the cloud, so it is always getting smarter. The more you use Echo, the more it adapts to your speech patterns, vocabulary and personal preferences. And because Echo is always connected, updates are delivered automatically.

Amazon are always adding new capabilities to Echo. Recently, the company has added streaming music from Pandora, audiobooks from Audible, Google Calendar access, live sports scores and schedules, traffic reports, Amazon.com re-ordering, control of connected devices with WeMo and Philips Hue.

Echo has been fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with dynamic bass response. Its dual downward-firing speakers produce 360° omni-directional audio to fill the room with immersive sound. It provides hands-free voice control for Amazon Music, Prime Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. In addition, it is Bluetooth-enabled so users can stream other popular music services like Spotify and iTunes from their phone or tablet.

Echo works with devices such as lights and switches from Belkin WeMo and Philips Hue. Starter kits are available for easy setup. Echo also doesn't stop working when away from home. With the free companion app on Fire OS, Android, iOS and desktop browsers, users can easily manage alarms, music, shopping lists and more.