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04/08/2017 12:00 AM"Turn on the porch lights at 7:30 p.m."
"How did my portfolio do today?"
"Add garlic to my grocery list."
"How many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?"
"Order me a pony."
Ok, maybe not that last one.
For everyone who has ever wished for more hours in the day or a personal assistant to help get through their never-ending to-do list, your prayers have been answered. Marketing professionals and technology gurus have bandied about buzzwords and phrases like "concierge economy" and the "Uberization of daily life" but let's get right down to brass tacks: we're talking about the future of personal assistants, and it has arrived in a black cylinder topped with a pulsing blue light, and her name is Alexa.
Maybe you've heard of Alexa. She's been featured in a few television commercials starring alongside actor Alec Baldwin and hip-hop star Missy Elliott. She's checked Baldwin's stocks and ordered his socks, recited information about the number of Super Bowl championships retired football legend Dan Marino has won (none) and the number of Oscars Baldwin has won (also none), and she's turned on music. And Alexa accomplished all of this by simple voice command.
So what is Alexa? Alexa is the name given to the "brain" of the Echo, a device introduced by online super-retailer Amazon in 2014, that is designed around voice commands. The Echo is hands-free and always on – it takes a simple "wake" word, "Alexa", to start unleashing the power of this robotic assistant.
Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon, explained at the official unveiling of the Echo that because Alexa is cloud-based she is always "getting smarter." Since its launch, Amazon has worked to add new features to the Echo to expand Alexa's skillset.
"We've been able to add features like Audible, Pandora, home automation, sports scores, calendar, and more," Hart said.
The "more" Hart alludes to should actually be called "much more." The Echo allows integration with Belkin WeMo, Phillips Hue, and Samsung SmartThings products to automate your home. What does that mean exactly? One example is this: One device from Belkin WeMo, the WeMo Insight Switch, plugs into your standard wall outlet, and you can then plug a household object into the Insight Switch, a coffee maker for instance. The Insight Switch connects with your home's Wi-Fi so you can simply say "Alexa, turn on the coffee maker" and voila! Your coffee maker has been turned on.
Want to be a bit bolder? A coffee maker seems simple enough to control, yes? Try this one on for size: Replace the standard lightbulb in your front porch light with a Phillips Hue lightbulb. The Phillips Hue bulb connects with your home's Wi-Fi. Just ask Alexa to turn on the light and there shall be light.
Forget to close your garage door after carrying in your groceries? If you happen to have the Garageio Blackbox installed in your garage, you can ask Alexa to close the garage door for you.
Alexa seems like it's terrific with showy party tricks like turning lights on and off and closing doors, but it's also capable of accessing your Google calendar and adding items to a shopping list or a to-do list. It can also email that list to a specific recipient or sync it to your iPhone. The device is also equipped with what Amazon calls "skills". Those skills range from tasks like ordering a ride from Uber, getting headlines from your favorite news site, checking TV listings, getting a recipe, and, yes, ordering Prime eligible items from Amazon.com.
While the Echo is made to operate 100% hands-free, Amazon has expanded the "Alexa family" to two other devices as well, the Amazon Tap and the Amazon Dot. The primary differences between the three Alexa powered devices is their size – the Echo is the largest and the Dot is the smallest at the size of a hockey puck. The Tap is activated by just that, a tap. Unlike the Echo and the Dot, the Tap requires the push of a button before it can start receiving commands. At this writing the Dot is currently out-of-stock. Amazon introduced their newest family member in the spring of 2016 and it quickly sold out. Amazon customer service representatives expect to see the Dot back on their virtual shelves before the holiday gift-giving season.
The world of digital butlers is still relatively small. Alexa faces little competition in the race for digital assistants that have been able to cross the divide from simple voice-command searches (Apple's Siri) to the laundry list of tasks Alexa is able to complete. A newcomer to the digital butler race is the Google Home speaker that was announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai in May 2016.
While currently unavailable for purchase (Google has suggested a fall 2016 anticipated launch), Google Home seems to take many of its cues from Alexa. It's a small, roughly the size of an air freshener, is dressed in simple white, and is buttonless. And like the Amazon Echo and Dot, Google Home is activated with a "wake" phrase "Ok, Google". Unlike Alexa, however, Google Home's "brain" doesn't have a cute humanized name. Just Google will do. Not much is currently known about Google Home but it's quite possible that it will be available for sale before the holiday season.
Prices for devices in the Alexa family range from $90 to $179.99 For more information about Amazon's Alexa-enabled devices visit www.amazon.com. To sign-up to receive updates about Google Home, visit http://home.google.com.