Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) wings in the multibillion smart home market are expanding by the day, thanks to its policy of allowing hardware makers to use its voice assistant, Alexa, to power their devices. Lenovo is the latest tech giant to make use of the digital assistant, with the unveiling a new smart appliance that can turn on lights as well as play music among other things.
Alexa Smart Home Capabilities
Given that very few companies have developed their own artificially intelligent digital assistant, many are turning to the likes of Amazon to power the smart home devices. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is one of the companies that has already confirmed plans to use Alexa on a new table lamp it is working on. Small companies such as Jam are also leveraging Alexa capabilities.
“Our goal has never been to simply build smart home devices for the sake of advancing technology alone. In the same way, a person’s IQ is measured by applied knowledge, we believe products are ‘smart’ to the degree they’re actually understood and applied to daily life by their users,” said Lenovo’s Johnson Jia.
Lenovo Smart Home Appliance
Lenovo coming up with its own Smart Assistant is in one way a big threat to Amazon, which is also gunning for market share with its Echo speakers. With eight microphones, the new Smart Assistant will be able to listen to voice commands from all angles in the house. The company says it is currently working on a new model that will come with Harman Kardon premium audio speakers.
Available in several colors, the Smart Appliance is poised to go on sale in May with the standard version going for $130, while the premium model with Harman Kardon speakers going for $180. Lenovo flexing its muscle in the smart home appliance market does not come as a surprise given the opportunities up for grabs.
Estimates indicate that nearly 2 billion worth of smart home devices will ship by 2019 something that affirms strong demand for such devices in the market. This year alone the market could generate revenues of $500 billion something that continues to excite major stakeholders looking to take a piece of the pie.