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Amazon is reportedly following through with its plans to equip Alexa with telephony features, which could soon allow users to place or receive telephone calls via compatible Alexa devices.
Hey, Alexa, Make A Call
These brand-new Alexa devices will pioneer Amazon’s telephony features, and they will also come equipped with an intercom-like functionality, according to Recode, citing multiple sources. The new devices were already inside Amazon’s beta testing as of last month, and an announcement should make its way to the public “in the coming months.”
While Amazon’s Echo line of products have been popular households companions for quite some time now, they still need a key feature that’ll render them as a household necessity, especially in this age of incipient but growing smart home adoption.
Alexa Skills Are Numerous, But Are They Popular?
Some of Echo’s Alexa-enabled skills allow users to remotely play music, ask for weather updates, shop online, and a handful more — in fact, over 10,000 more — thanks to Alexa’s colossal cache of skills. But quantity is just one conversation. Quality is a separate one, and as Recode notes, Alexa skills have had struggles trying to get any traction, according to a recent study.
Some regard communication features as killer applications for voice-enabled devices, aside from being an organic implementation for such devices. Phone call features and an intercom ecosystem could initiate increased fanfare for the Echo lineup.
However, such an implementation won’t be fully smooth-sailing. Amazon led the Series A investment in a startup named Nucleus, which sells its own tablet line via Amazon, that’s meant to replace household video intercom systems. Amazon has flirted with the idea of making a device equipped with a camera, according to the report, but what isn’t clear is the said device’s release schedule. Pressed for comment, Nucleus said that it can’t account for Amazon’s plans.
Amazon’s Lead In An Era Of Voice Assistants
Both Google and Amazon were reported to be cooking up plans for telephony features for their respective smart home devices, although it seems like Amazon has decided to go ahead with its intent. While taking the first plunge is an important step, Amazon can’t simply trek willy-nilly in the shaky topic of privacy. Although the retail company might have a way of addressing those.
Amazon could only record call metadata such as phone numbers or the length of calls a user makes and not conversations altogether. Details about specific ways of implementation remain slim, so it’s not yet clear how Amazon will handle phone numbers and contacts, but the move is already a promising one on paper alone for Amazon’s loyal Echo fans.
Amazon has had an early lead in the expanding voice assistant market, which is a significant achievement of its own, considering it doesn’t have the luxury of porting Alexa over to smartphones as Google, Microsoft, and Apple have had, with their respective voice assistants accessible via compatible handsets.
Keep your eyes peeled for Amazon’s potential announcement of the brand-new Alexa-enabled devices with calling features. Expect due coverage form Tech Times whenever that hits.
Are you excited by Amazon’s telephony prospects, or do you think it should just stick to improving Alexa skills? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
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