Amazon Pushes Alexa Kit for Appliance Makers to Imbed Voice Control

Amazon pushed its Alexa Connect Kit in a Friday blog post as a way for companies to bring voice experiences to appliances “without breaking the bank.” It said, for example, most people don’t know how long it takes to thaw a 3-pound chicken in a microwave, so they would search online for answers and then cycle through settings on the oven, “hoping it worked.” Food-specific voice commands gets users to the proper cooking time faster, it said. Sharp used the Alexa kit in its smart microwave oven, giving users up to 70 voice commands for food-specific instructions, such as cooking butternut squash or reheating a pizza slice. “Verbally saying what you want can be a more intuitive experience than pressing buttons, and it’s especially helpful for older people, youth, and people with motor or vision impairments,” Amazon said. Each major appliance vendor is developing its own proprietary connected appliance platform, said Sharp Electronics President James Sanduski, saying it used the Alexa platform to develop an affordable reference hardware device. Until recently, products were limited in how they could integrate with smart technologies because of the additional technology required: Wi-Fi connectivity, additional processing power, firmware and connectivity software, Amazon said. Alexa Connect simplifies the process with a compact module that creates a gateway for cloud connectivity and voice, it said. The kit includes the required back-end services so device makers don’t have to write special networking or security firmware, set and manage cloud services or develop an Alexa skill or app, Amazon said.