Harman Introduces Harman Kardon Allure with Amazon Alexa

At IFA 2017, Harman International introduced the Harman Kardon Allure, a smart speaker with Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) that complements any home space with 360-degree sound. By pairing Harman Kardon’s refined audio performance with Alexa’s intuitive voice technology, Harman expects to attract music enthusiasts and voice-activated speaker users frustrated with the low quality sound experience of the Amazon Echo speaker.

Promising a Smarter Way to Enjoy Music, Sony's announcements at the IFA 2017 show in Berlin follow the predictable consumer trends, offering access to voice personal assistants and improved wireless smart home features. Sony's new LF-S50G wireless speaker combines high quality sound with the smart features of the Google Assistant built-in. The LF-S50G can be used "smartly" in the kitchen with handy clock functionality and is IPX3 splash-proof design with a water repellant surface.

A new report from Futuresource Consulting shows the home audio market continues to outpace the wider home electronics market, thanks in great part to the success of smart and wireless speakers, and soundbars. Futuresource's new Worldwide Audio Report highlights that Amazon commands 90% of smart speaker’s sales as well as other key trends. However, the story is not so good for many legacy categories such as hi-fi systems and loudspeakers and home-theatre-in-a-box systems.

In previous editorials, I have highlighted the important role of smart speakers in promoting the user case for voice personal assistants (VPAs) and voice recognition applications - given the ideal combination of far-field microphone arrays with a complete audio ecosystem that encompasses digital signal processing, acoustic echo cancelation, noise cancellation, and many other technologies. This opens significant opportunities for the audio industry, given we understand the challenges.

According to Global Market Insights, the global market for Smart Speakers represented over USD 400 million in 2016 and is predicted to grow at an estimated CAGR of over 50% from 2017 to 2024. The market research company says Internet of things (IoT) is expected to be a major factor driving growth. "The rising penetration of the Internet has extended to everyday applications and has increased the consumer demand for smart devices that offer a wide range of functions," they state.

Market research and consulting company, Futuresource Consulting recently released a new report in the consumer electronics CE space covering the emerging voice personal assistants (VPAs) category and smart speakers. The report highlights that we are the beginning of a wider market transformation, with voice personal assistants (VPAs) at the heart of a new CE land grab.

The audio industry was once again shaken to its foundations by Apple's announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017. The product updates and sneak peeks made at this Apple Special Event, on June 5, 2017, were extremely rich in surprising technology revelations, even though its implications might not become clear until a few weeks or months later. After all, the WWDC conference - a developer's conference - is traditionally where Apple builds the foundations for what will be its underlying short-term/long-term strategies, serving mainly to motivate developers and strategic partners.

Like every year at this time, the world of telecom and mobile descends upon cosmopolitan Barcelona for another edition of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) promoted by the GSM Association (GSMA). As we have noted before, MWC is becoming a larger forum for cutting-edge audio technologies than other industry events: anything that's wireless audio, wearables, and IoT, and even small dedicated audio technology providers have taken notice and are attending in full force.