Amazon Alexa Will Soon Blend With Logitech Harmony
Amazon's Alexa is truly growing up to becoming the personal assistant for the home, sprinting past Google, Apple, and Microsoft and giving them a run for their money. While those big three are scrambling to get a foothold inside living rooms, Amazon is already building up its army rallying behind Alexa. The latest news, if for real, will potentially add dozens if not hundreds of devices that don't directly support Alexa. All through the masterful orchestrating of Logitech's Harmony smart home platform.
Like its namesake, Harmony's goal is to corral disparate smart appliances into a single place, with one remote or smartphone app to rule them all. Logitech launched Harmony at a time when there were no big smart home standards that would give both consumers and device makers a single thing to lean on. Of course, today, we N number of such platforms, from Apple's HomeKit to Google's Brillo to Samsung's SmartThings, which means Harmony still has a relevance and a loyal following.
An e-mail from Logitech sent to Harmony owners seems to hint that the two companies plan to leverage on that mass adoption to bring each other's products forward. The communication says that Logitech is beta testing integration with Amazon's Echo, Dot, and Tap devices, all of which put Alexa at the forefront of the smart home revolution. In practice, that means that users that have both Logitech Harmony and one (or all) of those Amazon products can call on Alexa to set up the living room for a conducive movie night or to prepare the coffee and the music for a productive morning.
Although it started out as an awkward but popular smart canister, Amazon Echo and therefore Alexa, has rapidly expanded its space, almost becoming the byword in voice-enabled smart home automation. The recent spate of new integrations, from cars to IFTTT to digital fridge speakers, only serve to strengthen Amazon's lead in what was initially predicted to be Apple's or even Google's domain.
VIA: Zatz Not Funny