You can now test drive an Amazon Echo right from your browser. Developers can even test out Alexa skills with the new site, but there’s a catch. ( Amazon )
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Some things are best seen and heard in person, and Amazon’s Alexa may be one of those. Amazon’s Echo, the hardware home for the personal assistant, is sold at select retailers, but many consumers and developers had to buy before they could try, up until now.
Amazon has built Echosim.io, a browser-based home for Alexa that gives consumers and developers a space to get familiar with the personal assistant before making a decision on whether or not to order an Echo.
Reverb
Echosim.io, “Alexa in the browser,” is the brainchild of Sam Machin, a hacker who previously made the digital assistant accessible via smartphone. Alexa in the browser took shape at a hackathon in 2015 and became the inspiration for Echosim.io.
“I’ve found this really useful for testing out Alexa integrations and developing new skills as I can have it open on my desktop and not have to shout to the Echo downstairs,” says Machin. “It’s also another option for accessing Alexa when you are out [or] if you have an Android phone.”
Anyone with an Amazon account can go to Echosim.io to have a chat with Alexa. For those looking to test out the skills they’re developing for Alexa, they can also do so at Echosim after logging into the developer accounts.
Just click on the microphone button on the Java-based mock up of the Echo and ask Alexa a question, says Amazon’s Glenn Cameron.
“The Alexa Voice Service integration puts the power of Alexa behind the 3D Javascript animations,” Cameron says. “AVS enables you to integrate Alexa’s built-in voice capabilities into your connected products. Carve your own little corner in IoT with a speaker and mic, a microcomputer and the self-service tools at developer.amazon.com.”
Resound
Since its release in 2014, the Echo has been a hit for Amazon. It has allowed the company to showcase the strength of its cloud, its machine learning know-how and its competence in manufacturing hardware.
Alexa arrived as an unfinished product and is still undergoing major life changes, but Amazon was able to lay down the foundation and called on developers to help build it into something more.
To encourage development, Amazon released the Alexa Voice Service and Alexa Skills Kit. The voice service enables third-party to leverage Alexa, while the Skills Kit imparts her with new abilities.
At the end of its first quarter of 2016, Amazon announced that Alexa had been given hundreds of new skills.
These skills range from hiring an Uber car and ordering pizza from Dominos, to getting news from NBC and balance summaries from Capital One — it can even summon a Tesla car.
It’s possible that Amazon’s success with the Echo and Alexa has resonated with the company’s rivals. The Mountain View-based company has announced Google Home, which is home to the Google Assistant that builds on Google Now to offer Alexa-like services.
For Apple’s part, it’s rumored to be preparing to open up a Siri SDK (software development kit) just as Amazon did with Alexa. No one is likely to admit their product is a direct response to Alexa. But what’s clear is Amazon’s moves in the space have not fallen on deaf ears.
Echosim.io Alexa simulator, Inspired by me https://t.co/8kPqLFEKsa
Sam Machin (@sammachin) May 27, 2016
Introducing https://t.co/vvYoqCuXeY – A New Online Tool Built by the Community, for the Community pic.twitter.com/eVkKRA0UGh — Alexa Developers (@alexadevs) May 27, 2016
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