You Can Now Have a Conversation With Your Fridge

It’s taken a bit longer than expected, but the rest of the technology market is finally catching up with Apple’s voice controlled phenomenon, Siri.

In 2012 Amazon acquired a Siri like app technology – Evi App. There was much speculation about the move by Amazon, most suggesting that Amazon was about to make the move into the smartphone market. They were wrong. Amazon was planning to take over the rising, but less competitive, smart home market instead.

The Alexa, which if you haven’t heard about already (where have you been?) is Amazon’s voice assistant - it first launched in the UK in 2016 within a speaker device called the Echo. Since the Alexa launch there has been no stopping the voice assistant. Many tech companies such as LG have announced product launches using the Alexa voice assistant.

In 2017 there looks to be no end to the voice controlled product launches. Both LG and Samsung have launched fridges with voice control. The fridges both have the option to see what is INSIDE the fridge via a panoramic camera as well as playing music and notifying you if any of its’ content is about to expire – pretty nifty, huh?! And these are just a few of their endless mindboggling features.

Fridges and speakers are merely the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to the Ivee smart alarm you can tell it to ‘shut up’ in the morning to switch it off. And with the Vocca Light you can turn any old lightbulb into a voice activated one. Is there no end?!

Voice activated technology isn’t new though, it was just very expensive initially so the market for it wasn’t as big as it could have been. This is why Amazon Alexa is making headlines - they have created products which are more accessible and thus created a voice assistant storm. This week they launched their latest venture in the UK - the Fire TV Stick which incorporates the voice controlled Alexa. What’s more, the stick costs just £40 which gives you a smart TV and Alexa Assistant rolled into one. Get answers to online questions, play music and control your lights – from the comfort of your sofa!

It may only be a matter of time before all our gadgets are dominated by voice controlled assistants as the technology market moves faster and faster each year. One thing is for sure, here at Software Advisory Service we will be speaking to each other more than we speak to our fridges.