Amazon Alexa voice assistant coming to Bluetooth headphones, smartwatches soon


Amazon Alexa

Amazon today announced ‘Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit’ with an aim to bring Alexa voice assistant to portable, on-the-go devices such as hearables, headphones, smart watches, fitness devices, and more. The kit has enough support for OEMs to add Alexa to their devices with minimum investment in hardware or integration efforts.

The Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit allows OEMs to quickly integrate AVS (Alexa Voice Assistant) without the need for bulk coding. Bluetooth headphones built with this new Alexa kit can connect directly to the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) via the Amazon Alexa App available both for Android and iOS. Once they are paired with the Alexa app on the phone, users can take advantage of the Alexa Voice Service.

The new Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit is an alternative to the AVS Device SDK that Amazon released last year which requires the accessories to run the Alexa Voice Service natively. OEMs such as Bose, Jabra, iHome, Beyerdynamic, Bowers and Wilkins, and AVS Solution Providers Linkplay, SUGR, and Libre Wireless have confirmed to bring Alexa enabled Bluetooth products this year.

OEMs who wish to include Alexa support can now sign up for the Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit here to get notified when it is available.

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