SapientX will demonstrate its voice assistant system at CES 2022 for use as life-size guides at stores, airports and train stations, it emailed Friday. At CES, it will be used in a cockpit demonstrator at Visteon’s Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino pavilion. It supports 40 languages and Epic’s MetaHuman Creator in the Unreal Engine, said the company.

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.

Amazon and iRobot are working on voice-enabled intelligence for home robots that will result in “more thoughtful, proactive smart home automations,” said the companies Wednesday. Robot vacuums and mops with IRobot Genius Home Intelligence have Imprint smart mapping technology that learns how to best navigate a user’s floors, remembering rooms and certain furniture to clean “where it’s most needed." Interactive Alexa conversations and predictive and proactive recommendations are said to give users a new level of personalization and control for their homes, schedules, preferences and devices, the companies said. “The combination of advanced navigation, object identification and advanced voice-enabled technologies lets people interact with them in a more natural way, gaining greater control of their smart home,” said iRobot CEO Colin Angle. The latest update to iRobot Genius will allow iRobot and Amazon customers to have a two-way dialogue with their robots to improve the overall experience, they said. Through Alexa, a Roomba robot vacuum or Braava jet robot mop can let a user know when it has finished a cleaning job, if it needs assistance, or even to ask its owner for clarification on a particular cleaning job. Coming soon, iRobot customers will be able to set "do not disturb" times for their connected robot cleaning device. If a customer tries to initiate a cleaning during a previously designated "do not disturb" time, the robot will clarify with the owner.

Snap One announced an exclusive distribution agreement with voice platform company Josh.ai, and it updated the Josh.ai driver in the Control4 database, making it Control4-certified and compatible with the company’s Simple Device Discovery Protocol. The driver can import Control4 lighting scenes and offers deeper integration with music streaming services including Pandora, SiriusXM and Tidal, said Snap One Monday. Control4 clients will be able to control their connected devices in every room using "natural" language without requiring a professional installer to pre-program macros, Snap said. It gave the example of a user saying, “Ok Josh, turn on the lights, open the shades halfway, and listen to Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones.” Josh.ai listens to the request, understands it's coming from the kitchen and identifies which lights and shades to control and which content to search for on Tidal; the Control4 controller activates the hardware to make it all happen, Snap said. As part of the agreement, Josh.ai-certified Control4 dealers in the U.S. and Canada will soon be able to purchase Josh.ai hardware and software through the Control4 Portal, it said.

Amazon is moving into the senior living space, it said Monday, announcing Alexa Smart Properties for senior living communities and healthcare facilities. The business is designed to simplify deploying and managing Alexa-enabled devices at scale to offer customized voice experiences for residents and patients. Senior living residents using the Alexa-based system have an Echo device in their room, allowing them to keep in touch with loved ones, connect with their community and access community news, it said. Administrators can customize community information such as activity schedules and meal menus. Senior living communities including Atria and Eskaton will integrate with Alexa Smart Properties at select locations, Amazon said. Hospitals can provide information tailored to their facility, including skill experiences such as games and podcasts, it said. Addressing privacy, Amazon said voice recordings aren't saved, and Echo smart speakers have “multiple layers of privacy protection"; residents and patients can disable Alexa’s ability to respond to the wake word by pressing the mute button on top of the Echo device. Amazon for Residential, announced last year (see 2009030036), is also part of Amazon Smart Properties.

Universal Electronics began supplying its Bluetooth and infrared voice remote controls to Malaysia’s Astro for its Ultra set-top box, it said Thursday. Astro services 74% of the country’s homes, said Universal.

More than 2 billion devices will be shipped globally by 2026 with dedicated chipsets for ambient sound or natural language processing, reported ABI Research Tuesday. Most current implementations “focus on simple tasks, such as wake word detection, scene recognition, and voice biometrics,” said ABI. But the coming of AI-enabled devices will enable “more complex audio and voice processing applications," it said. The June announcement that Siri will process certain requests and actions offline frees Apple’s voice interface “from constant internet connectivity and significantly improves the iPhone user’s experience,” said ABI. It expects Apple’s competitors “to follow suit and offer similar support” on operating systems “currently supporting billions of consumer and connected devices.”

ReadSpeaker’s text-to-speech technology is used in Spotify’s Car Thing, a screen-based interface designed to attach to a car vent to simplify content selection, said the digital voice company Tuesday. Premium Spotify subscribers can use the device to select content by voice, tap, turn or swipe to get to music and podcasts they want to hear, says the Spotify website. Waiting lists for the product have persisted since April. ReadSpeaker believes all brands eventually will have their own independent voice assistant, and custom voices will be part of brand differentiation.

Amazon, which has led the smart speaker market since 2017, now has more than two-thirds share, compared with a quarter for Google and the rest divided between Apple and Facebook, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Wednesday. The U.S. installed base of smart speakers reached 126 million in June, up from 20 million four years ago, said CIRP. Forty-three percent of Amazon Echo owners and 38% of Google smart speaker owners have more than one device, it said. About 50 million U.S. homes have at least one Amazon Echo device, and about 23 million homes have at least one Google Nest/Home device. Over 40% of customers own more than one smart speaker.

Amazon’s new Reading Sidekick feature, which uses an Amazon Kids-enabled Echo smart speaker and a Kids+ subscription ($3 a month or $25 per year), is designed to help kids ages 6-9 become strong readers using Alexa, it blogged Tuesday. Kids engage an Echo device by saying, “Alexa, let’s read,” said Amazon. Children tell Alexa the book’s title and the digital assistant asks whether they want to read a little, a lot or to take turns, said the company.