All items tagged with smart speakers and smart home (45)

The First Smart Speaker from Apple: A Strong Design and How It Is Perceived

October 15, 2020 by Joao Martins

The First Smart Speaker from Apple: A Strong Design and How It Is Perceived

For this edition of The Audio Voice, I intended to focus a bit more on the latest developments in the fascinating world of sensors and how it impacts product development and design in all applications areas, particularly in consumer electronics, automotive, and health applications. After writing previously about Apple - the sensors on the Apple Watch and the surprising firmware updates for the AirPod Pro earbuds - I really didn't want to go back to Apple. But as always, Apple has a way of surprising us exactly when we least expected, and the company made another important audio announcement.

Apple Unveils HomePod mini Smart Speaker to Expand Its Smart Home Ecosystem

October 13, 2020 by audioXpress Staff

Apple Unveils HomePod mini Smart Speaker to Expand Its Smart Home Ecosystem

Opening what was broadly expected to be an event focused on the iPhone 12 unveiling, Apple introduced the new HomePod mini. Unlike the original HomePod, primarily focused on the music listening experience, the HomePod mini is touted as an actual Smart Speaker. In fact, betting on leading on four fronts: to combine a great music listening experience, an intelligent assistant, and smart home capabilities, with built-in privacy and security, in a beautiful compact design. Also much more affordable, at just $99.

Google Introduces Nest Audio Smart Speaker With Focus on Music Reproduction

October 1, 2020 by Joao Martins

Google Introduces Nest Audio Smart Speaker With Focus on Music Reproduction

Google held the company's traditional hardware announcements event. Apart from a new mandatory phone, the star of the event was the new Nest Audio smart speaker, bigger and more powerful than the Google Home that it replaces. Rumored for months, the new smart speaker reflects the hard work by a dedicated engineering team, resulting in a better overall speaker design, but also improved multi-room streaming features. Inside, there's more intelligence to support voice commands locally, and there's even a microphone "privacy" mute switch, when required.

Amazon Reimagines Echo Smart Speaker Family for 2020

September 29, 2020 by Joao Martins

Amazon Reimagines Echo Smart Speaker Family for 2020

Amazon.com introduced its all-new line-up of Echo devices, featuring completely new designs, enhanced audio, more powerful hardware, and experiences that make Alexa voice assistant more engaging, and helpful. Most of the new Amazon products will be available at the end of October 2020, and that includes an all-new Echo (4th Gen), now with better sound and integrated smart home hub; the new Echo Dot and Echo Dot Kids Edition featuring the new spherical designs and improved audio, and Echo Show 10, the smart speaker with screen.

AKM Develops Ultra-Low Power Intelligent System Wakeup ADC With Integrated Acoustic Activity Analyzer

July 21, 2020 by audioXpress Staff

AKM Develops Ultra-Low Power Intelligent System Wakeup ADC With Integrated Acoustic Activity Analyzer

Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation (AKM) has developed the AK5706, a high-performance 24-bit stereo A/D converter (ADC) with an integrated Acoustic Activity Analyzer (AAA) wakeup solution consuming only 30μA, audio buffer, and support for digital and high-SNR microphones. Designed for systems that must listen for specific types of audio activity while consuming very low power, the AK5706 is ideal for products such as speech recognition systems, as well as security and smart home devices.

China Will Surpass the United States in Voice Control Front End Shipments in 2020

June 24, 2020 by audioXpress Staff

China Will Surpass the United States in Voice Control Front End Shipments in 2020

Chinese smart home players are poised to parlay strength in smart home voice control into global influence. According to ABI Research, China will surpass the United States in voice control front end shipments by 15 million units at the end of 2020. Overall, the Asia-Pacific smart home installed base will grow from 66 million in 2020 to 316 million (a 30% CAGR) between 2020 and 2026, states the global tech market advisory firm. In the same period, the smart home installed base in the United States will grow a mere 3.6%.

Data-Over-Sound Pioneer Chirp Acquired by Sonos

February 13, 2020 by Joao Martins

Data-Over-Sound Pioneer Chirp Acquired by Sonos

Founded in 2011 and with a very promising trajectory of industry partnerships and growth, Chirp.io, the British data-over-sound company announced that it was acquired by Sonos, the wireless speaker company from Santa Barbara, California. With this new acquisition, that follows closely on other investments in voice- and edge-processing technologies, Sonos shows serious ambitions to expand its connected ecosystem of smart devices into the smart home and beyond.

Smart Speaker Market to Reach 92 Million Units Shipped in 2019

September 18, 2019 by audioXpress Staff

Smart Speaker Market to Reach 92 Million Units Shipped in 2019

The smart speaker market will grow by 35% this year, according to SAR Insight & Consulting’s Latest Digital Assistant Platform Forecast DATAbase, with shipments reaching 92 million. Amazon remains the market leader, but its smart speaker market share has declined and now represents approximately a third (33%) of the total volume anticipated in 2019. Total voice software unit shipments are expected to increase significantly to 2024.

Practical Test & Measurement: The Smart Way of Testing Smart Home Devices

June 12, 2019 by Hans W. Gierlich

Practical Test & Measurement: The Smart Way of Testing Smart Home Devices

In this article for audioXpress, Hans W. Gierlich, managing director of HEAD acoustics, explains how to test the different performance parameters of smart speakers and smart home devices under real-life conditions, how to deal with the challenges of optimizing systems for voice and audio quality, how to simulate environmental conditions, user behavior, and test the performance of the various functionalities. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2019.

Digital Voice Assistants in Use to Triple to 8 Billion by 2023

February 14, 2019 by audioXpress Staff

Digital Voice Assistants in Use to Triple to 8 Billion by 2023

A new study from Juniper Research has found that there will be 8 billion digital voice assistants in use by 2023, up from an estimated 2.5 billion at the end of 2018. The new research on "Digital Voice Assistants: Platforms, Revenues & Opportunities 2019-2023," shows growth will be driven by smart home devices and that Smart TVs will have the biggest expansion, growing at over 100% every year for the next 5 years. Juniper also identifies strong growth in wearables and emerging opportunities for both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) uses.

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