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There’s a good chance that in these recent years, you’ve “talked” to Siri, Alexa or Google. You may have asked if it is going to rain today or to play your new favourite song. If you haven’t had the chance yet, you’re missing out on a fun, unique technological experience!
The creation of the smart speaker is still new when we look at the evolution of technology in this century. Still, it already seems to be impacting a significant number of Canadians. As stated by Media in Canada, in 2019, nearly one-fifth (19%) of Canadian adults owned a smart speaker. Google lead the pack, with 14% of Canadians owning a speaker from that brand. Just 6% owned Amazon Echo, and only 2% reported owning an Apple Home Pod.
A smart speaker is different from any other virtual assistant, as it was designed to provide intelligent assistance in your home. It is exactly like a smart phone’s assistant but placed in a stationary home gadget. In fact, both devices may use same virtual assistant software depending its brand.
The smart speaker pledges to make your daily life easier and more efficient by helping with all the “small things” in life, like setting a timer with no hands. So next time you are covered in cookie dough, you don’t have to worry about damaging your iPhone while setting a timer for baking.
We all know that smart speakers can play music, but what else can they do?
All these above features can help enhance your home regime. You can also get other complimentary smart devices that can connect to the smart speaker, such as smart light bulbs. Turning all your lights off at once can be as easy as saying “Goodnight” to your speaker. With proper programming, the speaker would recognize that set command and turn everything off for the night. Cool, right? We think so.
The only downside to a smart speaker? If your command is too quiet or muttered, the speaker’s virtual assistant may not understand what you are trying to say and make a frustrating mistake. You also have to ensure you have reliable internet (potentially hyperlink to Internet page) as the smart speakers are connected to your network so they can give you the answer to your question or complete the task at hand.
These smart speakers are still in the early generations of virtual assistants and have much more innovation to go. It may be many years before we get any type of virtual assistant we have seen in Sci-Fi movies or TV shows, like Star Trek. Yet, this generation of smart speaker seems to have many benefits for when you need a little help organizing your busy lifestyle.
If you have any comments or questions, or you have a topic that would make a good blog post, please email us at informationM@westmancom.com
