August Home’s Doorbell Cam is now controllable by the Alexa digital assistant, the company said Thursday. Doorbell Cam owners can ask Alexa to "show the front door" to view front-door footage from their connected TV. They also can view video from the camera on an Amazon Show device, August said.

SiriusXM is now controllable by Amazon Alexa, said the companies in a Tuesday announcement. To tap into Alexa voice control, users enable the SiriusXM skill in the Alexa app and link accounts, said Steve Rabuchin, vice president-Amazon Alexa.

Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant is now available in a handheld wand. Amazon pitches the Dash Wand ($20) as a device to find recipes, convert measurements, buy products and find nearby restaurants. The Dash Wand, which can attach to a refrigerator via its built-in magnet, also has a barcode scanner owners can use to order products. Consumers who buy the device and register it get $20 off their next purchase.

Harman is using CES Asia to debut a new “far field voice input” technology called Sonique that uses voice commands in place of “traditional physical inputs” via buttons, keyboards or mouse clicks to operate devices, the company said in a Thursday announcement. Harman sees devices with voice input capability for home hubs, conferencing, healthcare and robotics becoming a $7 billion market opportunity by 2024, it said. “Sonique is a total voice solution that includes a customizable, high performance microphone array, a suite of voice algorithms to accurately capture voice commands, even in high ambient noise environments, and integration with popular natural voice engines, and low distortion speakers.” Sonique will be offered in two-, four- and seven-mic “configurations,” depending on range and intended application, Harman said. Sonique will work with “all natural voice engines that are available for public use,” it said. Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana are available now, and other engines, including Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri, will be available “in the near future,” it said.

Upcoming D-Link mydlink products will work with Google Assistant voice control, said a D-Link announcement Thursday. Users can engage voice control by saying "OK Google" to Google Assistant on Google Home or an Android phone to ask questions, manage tasks and control a mydlink device in the home, said the company. It didn't respond to questions on plans for integration with other digital assistants such as Alexa, Cortana or Siri.

Some 10.7 million U.S. Amazon customers have an Amazon Echo device, said a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners report Monday. Awareness of Echo devices among customers "increased dramatically" in the past 12 months through March 31 but may be reaching a plateau, said analyst Josh Lowitz. Awareness of Amazon Echo reached 86 percent, up from 61 percent in the prior year, said CIRP, and from 20 percent as of March 31, 2105, the first full quarter after Echo's introduction. Primary use cases are as a voice-responsive internet query device, household controller and streaming music speaker, it said. The installed base of Echo devices -- which CIRP counts as the Alexa-enabled Echo, Amazon Tap and Echo Dot -- continues to expand, with 25 percent growth in Q1, said analyst Mike Levin. The Echo Dot ($49) has 52 percent of Amazon's Alexa family installed base, with 36 percent going to Echo and 10 percent to the Tap. Two percent of consumers didn't know which model they owned, it said. The Dot got a push from aggressive discounts during the holiday season, said Levin. The study was based on surveys of 500 U.S. consumers who made a purchase at Amazon from January to March, it said. Meanwhile, just over 10 percent of U.S. broadband households have adopted a smart speaker with a voice assistant such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home, said a Parks Associates report Monday. Parks predicts the category will ship more than 50 million units by 2020. Voice-based technologies are growing as a preferred consumer interface, said analyst Dina Abdelrazik, with Samsung soon to add Bixby to a field including Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana (see related story, this issue). "Voice is now vying to be the default method for consumer interaction with all connected products,” she said.

Three-fourths of U.S. consumers ages 13 to 64 have used voice commands on a device, said a GfK report Wednesday. Smartphones led devices used for voice control at 69 percent, followed by tablets at 21 percent; car infotainment systems 20 percent; PCs 18 percent; and TVs 14 percent. Less than two years after introduction, digital home assistants (DHA) “have yet to make more than a small dent” in the U.S. market, said GfK, with 10 percent of consumers owning an Amazon Echo or Dot and 2 percent owning a Google Home, it said. Among nonowners, intent to buy a DHA is low, with just 3 percent “very likely” to buy one in the next year, it said. Forty-six percent of consumers owning a DHA say they use the devices regularly, and 19 percent use them “all the time,” said the report, with playing music the top use case at 63 percent. Other uses for DHAs: ask a question; get news, weather, traffic and sports reports; control lights, thermostats and fans; check calendars and to-do lists; play videos; search for and play podcasts; read and compose emails and texts; and order products from Amazon, it said. The report is based on interviews with 1,012 members of GfK’s KnowledgePanel, including 108 DHA owners, during February and March.

A free Alexa Skill Building Bootcamp will be open to attendees at the NAB Show. Attendees will receive an overview of the voice-control technology and the tools necessary to build Alexa experiences that allow audiences to engage with their content, said NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny. Attendees will receive the Alexa Skills Kit, including the tools, code samples and application programming interface required to build Alexa skills, said NAB. The boot camp will be April 22, 12:30-5 p.m., at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Entertainment and music are the top uses for Amazon Echo and Google Home, said an Argus Insights blog post Monday based on consumer reviews of the devices Nov. 1-March 31. Entertainment was mentioned by well over 30 percent of voice assistant users, followed by music, with nearly 35 percent of Alexa users using Echo devices for music and just over 25 percent of Google Home users summoning music on the device. Weather reports came in third for both devices at just over 10 percent of Echo users and just over 5 percent of Google Home owners. Smart home device control -- led by light and fan control -- was fourth. Smart home adoption is “not yet the killer app” for voice control, said Argus. As consumers start to ask more of the assistants, it’s logical that smart home experiences need to tie into the ecosystems, it said, “within reason.” Users wouldn’t want a thief to be able to open a door lock or turn off the security system by voice, it said.

Vivint Smart Home announced compatibility with Google Assistant voice control on Google Home in a Tuesday release. By saying the trigger phrase, “Ok Google,” customers can control Vivint products throughout the home including smart locks, lights, cameras, garage doors, thermostats and security systems, said the company. Natural language processing combined with far-field voice recognition understands users’ commands from across the room so saying “Ok Google, tell Vivint I’m hot” can turn down the thermostat, said the company. Beginning next month, Vivint customers will be able to connect Google Home to their Vivint smart home system using the Google Home app, allowing them to control devices via the speaker, Vivint’s panel or its mobile app, said the company. In a survey by Vivint and Coldwell Banker, 72 percent of Americans who have smart home products want voice control, Vivint said.