Accelerating Time to Market with Surfaceink’s Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Authorized Test Lab
I am excited to announce that Surfaceink has become an Authorized Test Lab (ATL) for Alexa’s Amazon Voice Service (AVS). I am also excited to formally work on Alexa again and continue to help people and companies make great products leveraging the most successful Voice UI. This authorization will allow OEMs and Startup companies looking to gain AVS certification for their Alexa built-in integrations to test and submit their voice-enable products for certification at our state-of-the-art San Jose Lab location.
My History with Alexa
Before I joined Surfaceink, I was with Amazon for almost 6 years, all with AVS. In my time there, I helped author the first version of the Acoustic Testing User Guide on which the Acoustic Certification process is based. My role was focused on client-facing field support and specifically helping with building audio sub-systems. This involved guiding device makers through the various aspects of audio-enabled consumer electronics, including microphone selection and evaluation, noise suppression and beamforming techniques, and how to design experiments to validate use cases.
Getting AVS certified is no trivial task. If last year you built a Widget, and this year you want to build a Widget with Alexa, what are all the things you need to consider? How do you get certified? It can be a lot to take on without expert guidance and the right technical resources.
The Surfaceink team and ATL are set up to help guide you and your Alexa-enabled devices through the certification process.
What You Need to Know About the AVS Certification Process
To earn the trust of end customers, Amazon ensures that there is a certain level of performance with the Alexa service even when not on an Amazon device. Similar to a cell phone losing connection and blaming the carrier, or losing Wi-Fi connectivity and blaming the Internet Service Provider (ISP), Amazon understands that lapses in the Alexa service due to hardware or software issues on the device would ultimately land on Amazon to resolve and support. To help address this need, the team built out a certification process to objectively measure performance across multiple key areas, which combine to form the holistic user experience.
The current process can be framed in the below block diagram:
Device makers are expected to build and test their devices through their own quality assurance (QA) processes but also through a set of self-tests and checklists that frame the different aspects of AVS Certification. Those areas are currently Security, Music, Functional, User Experience (UX), and Acoustics.
Using Music Certification as an example, we confirm that the software infrastructure is correct to log and display the current music requested from the appropriate music service provider (MSP). Examples of MSPs are Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, and several more. If Amazon is not able to validate the tests associated with Music Certification, they cannot enable that MSP on that device.
What Surfaceink ATL Can Do for You
1. Mitigate Surprises
My experience having managed the AVS Certification Operations team and my multiple years with Amazon is something you will be able to take advantage of. It will short-circuit feature decisions and help frame how to best approach certification testing. Knowing if a given specification is a recommendation or a requirement can help reduce a lot of churn in your product development cycles.
2. Improve Performance
In addition to certification, we can assist with scoping the specific use cases for your product and help to improve performance for those key experiences in order to ensure your end-customers are delighted with your product right out of the box. We understand how critical it is for the out-of-the-box voice experience to be amazing. Alexa is an important feature for your product, and we want to help you realize your investment.
3. Accelerate Time to Market
Given our considerable history and experience with Alexa, Surfaceink is uniquely positioned to help you execute Alexa integration and navigate the certification process every step of the way. We are able to help you to avoid pitfalls and delays and to ensure that the entire process is as smooth as possible.
For more details about Surfaceink’s Alexa Built-in testing and certification services, visit us here.
