We need to talk about voice activation
The buzz of the next big thing was palpable last week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s biggest launchpad for new technology. Among more than 4 000 exhibitors, signs everywhere exhorted visitors to say “Hey Google”, the “wake phrase” for devices fitted with the voice-activated Google Assistant.
Amazon’s Alexa was not to be outdone, making its way into smart TVs, cars and coffee machines. A year ago, Alexa was the only voice game in town, but quirky applications like a voice-activated pool cleaner positioned it as a curiosity on the side. This year, it was all but the main event, with Google Assistant.
While neither company formally exhibits at the electronics show, both had an aggressive presence, with their banners, sponsorships, partnerships, activations and meeting rooms almost overshadowing traditional consumer electronics brands.
So it was that kitchen appliance maker Gourmia was touting its air fryers and pressure cookers not for their latest foodmaking features, but for their voice enablement.
“The voice command feature allows for effortless cooking and control of your home, kitchen appliances, household lights, thermostat,” the company crowed. “All you need is the sound of your voice to control virtually everything in your home.”
A good example was its GTA2800 Air Fryer, in which a “ready-view camera and Google Assist combines the latest cooking technologies with the power of remote viewing and Google Assist to make it simpler to eat healthily . . . users can get to see what’s cooking inside the machine”.
Of course, you didn’t know you needed it, but now you won’t be able to live without it. Nor without the Smart Coffee Maker with Google Assist, which, we are told breathlessly, “brews coffee to your specification”!
These devices raise the question of how necessary, useful or practical voice control really is.
A better indicator is the integration of voice with vehicle infotainment and navigation systems.
Most high-end cars that already come with a form of voice control — usually to select a mapping destination — do so extremely badly. The problem with these applications is that they are typically developed by a single company for a single purpose, and are usually so proprietary that they can only be updated by sending the car back to the manufacturer.
Once a manufacturer opts for Alexa or Google Assistant, the development path is wide open to every partner in the world, and the application can be updated over the internet at one’s convenience.
Panasonic, best known for its TV technology, used CES to announce a partnership with Amazon to create Alexa Onboard, which will give cars Alexa’s voicecontrol features. Panasonic’s Skip Generation IVI — it stands for in-vehicle infotainment — has also been upgraded to the latest version of Android, giving it
Google Assistant capabilities too.
Here, it makes sense. Navigational controls on car infotainment systems are typically clunky, out of date and downright dangerous to use while driving. Voice changes all that.
Smart speakers — or hearables — to control smart homes will become commonplace this year. Headphones, heaters and fridges will respond to our voices.
Remember those physical keypads on phones that now seem so last decade? Touch screens are about to go the same way.
Hearables will become commonplace this year