Qualcomm Bows Mesh Network Development Kit Integrating Alexa Voice Service

Qualcomm announced the first development kit for mesh Wi-Fi networks, qualified by Amazon, to integrate Amazon Alexa Voice Service. The kit gives manufacturers the building blocks to create mesh Wi-Fi systems with Alexa built-in quickly and cost effectively, so they can offer a voice control feature for connected devices, Qualcomm said Wednesday. The kit integrates Alexa with Meeami Technologies’ ClearVoice far-field voice enhancement software that’s said to allow voice commands to be understood from distances of several meters under noisy conditions. Qualcomm’s mesh networking platform, launched in 2017, added support for advanced voice services last year, and a “handful of device makers are starting to deliver on that promise,” blogged spokesperson Megan Wenholz Wednesday. The rise in popularity of digital assistants makes it “natural to converge all that functionality into one device,” she said of Alexa integration. A Qualcomm spokeswoman told us the company is supporting multiple voice assistant offerings across its various platforms and expects to continue to provide other platform-level ones, declining to comment on specific plans.