OnStar Guardian, the safety app that helps families stay connected with each other, will soon have its own Amazon Alexa skill. With the expanded support, which GM says is coming soon, Alexa users will be able to use their voice to contact OnStar advisors and more using the smart home devices they already own.
Amazon has set the date for its next big devices and services event, and if previous years are anything to go by we can expect new Echo and Ring hardware along with potentially a few surprises. The event will kick off at 9am PT (12pm ET) on Tuesday, September 28, and as with last year's it'll be online-only.
Amazon started making their own smart TV sets and announced the lot for the first time this week. The Amazon Fire TV Omni Series will be released with Fire TV smart TV access, Alexa, far-field voice controls, and a variety of display sizes. There'll be Fire TV Omni Series sets in 43, 50, 55, 65, and 75-inch models, all with 4K Ultra HD (UHD) resolution.
Sonos is exploring the potential of its own voice assistant, offering an alternative to Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant, with one big advantage over its existing voice control feature. Sonos speakers launched in the past few years have distinguished themselves by including support for either Google or Amazon's voice tech, user-selectable rather than preconfigured like most smart speakers.
Amazon wants to make sure your hands are clean, with a new Alexa-connected Smart Soap Dispenser proving that there's really no room where the assistant can't follow you. The new gadget, quietly added to Amazon's virtual shelves today, doesn't have a speaker or microphone itself, but it does help you meet the CDC's guidelines for how long you're scrubbing your filthy fingers.
Amazon's Alexa has a new voice option, and if you've wanted something new in your conversations, switching to a different sounding assistant could do the trick. The company quietly rolled out the new Alexa voice earlier this month, and changing over is straightforward.
Alexa Skills may have proved popular for adding new functionality to Amazon's virtual assistant, but the company is aiming to make the chatty smart home tech clever enough that users don't need to go out looking for third-party add-ons. Currently, there are more than 100,000 Alexa Skills - effectively apps for the voice-first assistant - available, and with that comes confusion.
Voice-controlled AI-powered assistants are pretty smart these days, but they didn't exactly start out that way. They weren't particularly smart about the way they sounded, at least not in the beginning. Almost all of these smart assistants, regardless of company or name, started out with a female voice before finally allowing users to pick from a variety of voices. The lone holdout among the major AI assistants is Alexa, but Amazon is finally letting users pick a male-sounding voice, eight years after the assistant debuted.
Verizon has revealed its own Smart Display, an Alexa-powered screen that packs its own LTE connection as well as WiFi. Built in collaboration with Amazon, it's the first example of a smart home product made with the Amazon Custom Assistant, meaning Verizon Fios customers will be able to ask for specific account details and get service support.
Samsung today announced the sixth-generation Family Hub smart fridge, and with it, we're getting a big addition. While Family Hub refrigerators have primarily supported Samsung's Bixby and SmartThings platforms in the past, this is the first generation that will come with Amazon's Alexa built-in. That, obviously, gives users more flexibility in how they integrate a Family Hub fridge with their smart home setup.
Amazon has added two new celebrity voice options to its Alexa assistant: Shaq and Melissa McCarthy. With these new options, Alexa users will get responses from the personal assistant in the voice of either celebrity, the latest additions in its line of novelty voice options. Amazon previously added Samuel L. Jackson's voice, which remains available.
Amazon has quietly been working on a wearable for kids, according to new leaks, complete with GPS tracking for paranoid parents. Like other gadgets designed to help monitor younger children, the wearable would have embedded wireless connectivity - similar to Amazon's Halo fitness band, shown here - though Amazon apparently also had plans to bake in Alexa, its smart assistant.