Hello everyone. Thanks for tuning in again. It's been a little while just
because Google's been making so much noise, but we're back with a video
related to Amazon Echo and of course the Alexa voice assistant. Now of course
if you have one of those devices you're going to want to mute them, put
the mic on mute basically, so that I don't trigger it constantly as I use the
keyword. What I'll say is that Amazon's update is a pretty serious
business-related update this week. We have five new packages that have come
from Amazon that are professionally installed security systems. There's no
monitoring or professional monitoring service but they all come with an Echo
or an Echo Dot and a Ring video doorbell, and some other devices like the Wink Hub 2
and other monitoring devices that work with your Echo or your Alexa enabled
device. The packages start at $575 USD they
range widely, but you can get them professionally installed like I
said, and have a fully automated house right then and there. Speaking of home
security you've been able to lock your Schlage
smart home locks. They're basically your Sense and your Connect models. Both of
those, you could lock and you could ask for status on but you couldn't unlock
them. You can now do that through connecting Alexa and Schlage locks. Basically that functionality
with your Amazon Echo or Alexa device. Now if you make a mistake three
times, and you're going to need a pin to be able to unlock your your door, if you
don't do that right pin in three attempts, they will lock out that
capability. So you'll need to then go back into the Amazon Alexa app and enter
your pin, and so it's a very, very, secure system. Somebody is not
going to be able to just yell without knowing your PIN and ask
Alexa to open up that lock. For those of you that have been paying attention to
what Google announced related to their Google Assistant where you can go and
use 8 different voices, now this is going to sound a little familiar. Amazon has
announced that they have eight different voices available for basically U.S.
English users. Now those eight voices right now are only for developers and
they're being given out basically for a test group. After that there's going to
be a charge for developers even to use those. Will they charge the average user
to use those? I don't know whether they're even going to make that
available as an option. This is intended for developers who are building skills
to have multiple voices within their skill. This will be a setting within the
Alexa App you can actually turn on and off. Automatic voice identification, this
feature basically if you start speaking to your Amazon Alexa device, your voice
is going to instantly be ID'd, and then used going forward. Now there's different
identification levels or different identification services that are going
to be there per service, so it's a little bit different between your payments to
music and other services. We're seeing this more and more
from a number of these DVR makers, or cable service providers. TiVo now has
Alexa capability. So Alexa can control your
TiVo DVR. You're able to change channels, change the volume, skip ads, which I
really like, and a number of other of functions and capability there. Like I
said earlier in the video, this is a pretty business heavy update. We're
seeing developer things. Another thing that they've added here
from Amazon is the ability for Alexa Skill developers to actually make some cash.
They've opened up the capability for adding subscription services, for paying
for goods and services through your voice, and they're giving all kinds of
their functions to developers today. Onto something for the kids, I like to see
this. This is a interesting integration. When you think about Lego
you kind of think about kids' creative time. When you add in Alexa to that
and some interactivity between stories, and interacting with the different
blocks in your in your child's lego, there's going to be some extra learning
opportunities there. And of course I think kids are going to enjoy it a
little more just to have somebody there talking to them that's not mom or dad
about their Lego Duplo. This is something personally I really don't care about but
if you care about the Royal Wedding at all that went on this last week, you can
go ahead and ask Alexa all kinds of questions about the royal wedding. Let me
show you a few here. "Tell me a royal wedding joke." "Where do Royal cats get
married? Westminster Tabby." "Who are Meghan Markel's
parents?" "Megan Markel's father is Thomas Michael and her mother is Dora Berglund."
All right well there you go. Now moving on to something again that's
a little more serious. The latest report has come out for quarter 1 2018
related to sales of smart home speakers. Now Amazon has gone ahead and they've
sold 4 million different units, so that's a massive massive number for a smart
home speaker. Now if you're contrasting that with last year's sales in quarter
one of 2017, Amazon sold 2 million of the Alexa enabled devices. Now that's
double in terms of numbers. Alright everyone thanks for watching again. Of
course there's a subscribe button coming at the end of this video. Thanks for
watching, we'll see you next time.