The Changing Face of Voice Control in the Home

Several new offerings are highlighting a push from smart home voice control platform providers to expand voice control beyond the smart speaker form factor. The move will change how voice and smart home control are managed both inside and beyond the home. As usual Amazon has led the way, announcing a slew of new products in September with some starting shipping in the 4Q 2019. For its part, Google added voice control to its latest Wi-Fi mesh routers at the end of October. The routers were also branded as Nest devices to further emphasize their smart home capabilities.

There are four new Amazon Alexa devices:

• Echo Loop: A ring embedded with two microphones, a speaker, and Bluetooth for connectivity to a smartphone app. Alexa is engaged through a button press. Only currently available via invitation.
• Echo Frames: Glasses that support constant Alexa listening for a wake word. Connectivity via Bluetooth to an Android only available app. Currently, only available via invitation.
• Echo Buds: The first Echo wearable to offer customers hands-free access to Alexa. Bluetooth connectivity to either iOS or Android devices. Available starting in October 2019.
• Echo Flex: An Alexa-enabled smart plug available November 14, 2019.

Notably, aside from the Loop, Amazon’s other two wearable offerings are always listening for the Alexa wake word.

There is also one new Google Assistant Device:

• Google Nest Wifi: The mesh networking offering incorporates features a speaker in each device as well as support for the Google Assistant voice control platform. Further out, Google says its routers will soon support Thread connectivity, while Bluetooth connectivity is currently only in the Nest Wifi point devices but planned for the router itself.

Within the smart home context, voice control brought significant improvements over smartphone apps and the dedicated devices and wall-mounted screens that typically preceded them. Voice cannot replace all interactions, but it does provide a popular, low-cost smart home interface that is readily understood. The speed with which voice has penetrated homes around the world is testament to its ready appeal.

Google extended voice into its Nest Cam IQ video camera back in February 2018, but the slew of announcements in the past few weeks have signaled a growing confidence in and commitment to pushing voice throughout the home and beyond from both Google and its key voice control rival, Amazon. The decoupling of voice control from smart speakers by both players will extend their competition across a range of new control devices.

Amazon’s wearable Alexa announcements came just ahead of Google’s US$2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit. While the focus of that deal has been on the existing connected health and wellness aspects of Fitbit’s business, the deal will also give Google the potential to put Assistant into its own wearables and, in turn, push wearables into its smart home offerings.

Fitbit has already developed voice for one of its devices. In August of this year, Fitbit announced the Versa 2, which added Alexa integration. On that device, end users push a button on the watch to activate Alexa after they have linked their Fitbit and Amazon accounts on a supporting smartphone. Google has long pushed its Wear OS to third-party smart watch manufacturers, with LG, Fossil, and Mobvoi shipping Assistant support on specific models, but investing in its own smartwatch hardware will extend the company’s ability to further integrate wearables with its Google Nest smart home offerings.

As Google pushes Wi-Fi control in its latest products, Amazon is set to follow suit. Its planned new networking Application Programming Interface (API) will deliver Alexa control of managing Wi-Fi access and other networking features that were previously the domain of a mobile app or web browser. Alongside Amazon’s own eero unit, Arris, ASUS, Linksys, and TP-Link are also said to be building using early versions of the networking API.

What these new form factors bring to the smart home market is more than additive and offers more than just a new point of control or control in rooms that may not have been included before. Instead, they deliver a way to push voice control interfaces into the fabric of a resident’s experience within the home and beyond. Through earbuds, a ring, glasses, or a watch, interaction can be initiated at low volume, often without the need for any physical engagement with a device at all. That makes commands more conversational and ad hoc.

In addition, these new devices and form factors provide further points to secure a home for one or another of the voice control platforms. A US$25 (vendor-subsidized) speaker, such as the Echo Dot or the Google Home Mini, may have been a relatively disposable investment, even after the time spent connecting and setting up smart home control, but a slew of devices around the home and elsewhere all leveraging the smart voice control platform further cements and protects end users within a vendor’s smart home ecosystem. 

These new wearable devices are also providing a way to personalize voice control within the home. Instead of delivering commands from across the room, users can interact with a very close device that can be tied to a specific end user with all the personalization potential that could deliver.

These devices are coming to market just ahead of the key fourth quarter when sales of voice control device shipments have been significantly boasted by price cutting. Those voice control sales introduced millions of new homes to smart home control and help drive sales of additional smart home devices in those homes. The new form factors will have a role to play in bedding in those installations within the existing systems or potentially drive a switch to a new system. They also signify the closing window for many homes in switching from one system to another.

Even as installations solidify around specific ecosystems, implementation capabilities will continue to be key. As multiple devices in a home or on an individual increasingly both support voice interaction and control, what remains to be seen is the effectiveness and end user experience that will result. Platform providers and their third-party partners will have to ensure that the level of responsiveness and simplicity already set by single, centralized devices can be delivered when multiple devices are triggered. Delivering over an expanding array of devices will put greater demand on ecosystem providers and their partners, but the value of connectivity to that valuable smart home customer base remains the same.