Amazon wants that Alexa be the operating system of your life

It's been a week since Amazon's seemingly annual material event is geared toward the audio-visual sector, but the technology and retail sectors are likely to handle quick-fire ads for many months to come. In just under two hours, Amazon has announced more than a dozen new products aimed at everything from home audio to entertainment to kitchen appliances and onboard infotainment. The products were launched so abruptly and with so little fanfare that it was impossible for most viewers to follow, let alone contextualize and understand why Amazon had manufactured a microwave oven or a microwave oven. 100W subwoofer.

Aside from Amazon's marketing strategy and its blitzkrieg style, it is now clear that the company intends to make Alexa, its Echo line, and all its devices open to the integration of its digital assistant into the smart home. For the most part, Amazon wants Alex to be the bone of the physical life of all, just as Apple, Google and Microsoft now control our digital systems. Not only is Amazon willing to do this by developing its own products that are likely to collapse completely, but it is also ready to penetrate well-established markets in which it will probably never succeed. Software.

"While today, the launch of" scattershot "products is imminent, there is a longer and longer game," says Jennifer Wise, an analyst at Forrester, who studies customer and user experience design. "Consider these products as a gateway into the lives of customers. Subsequently, the intelligent assistant of Amazon will become the wizard of choice compared to other options because Amazon has become so well anchored. "

Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge

It is obviously well established at this point that Amazon is looking for the smart home. The company sees a voice assistant powered by AI and all devices in which it can live as windows on our buying behavior and opportunities to steer this behavior towards Amazon. And, just as with its Premium membership, the more business you can lock into its ecosystem, the harder it will be to leave it.

"Launching a variety of products brings people's lives to Amazon, integrates them into their routine, and has a competitive edge for Amazon's competitive intelligence assistant." says Wise. It's also a self-powered cycle: more use of Alexa gives more data to Amazon, which "helps Amazon to improve its algorithms, the quality of the customer experience and to try to assist the market for smart assistants, "says Wise.

This can leave room for the prospect of high-end audio setup or an Amazon microwave oven, when you can get a probably more sophisticated product from hundreds of established brands of audio and audio brands. . The goal here is not necessarily to sell a ton of products. On the contrary, Amazon wants to make it more difficult for others to sell their own voice assistant products in similar categories and to prevent competing voice assistants from gaining ground. This is done by beating Apple and Google in new product categories, keeping prices ridiculously low and constantly trying to see what works.

"Launching a variety of products at different prices, some of which are not too intimidating for consumers, offers people buying options," says Wise. "It helps Amazon to refine its hardware strategy. It is also very important to create more opportunities for users to sign up for Prime, use Alexa and engage globally with Amazon.

Picture of Dan Seifert / The Verge

While Amazon has shown a shocking willingness to penetrate the established markets at any time, the company has shown more restraint and a smarter long-term strategy with regard to the new smart devices with which it has less of a ## 147 ## 39; experience. In this area, Amazon has been pleased to gain a favorable position in the market. At the end of last year, he bought the smart manufacturer of security cameras Blink. Earlier this year, she bought the intelligent video doorbell manufacturer Ring. Most of these companies, thanks to its $ 100 million Alexa Fund background, designed to keep an eye on the smart home industry, explore new potential customers and pick up the ones they like.

Thanks to the Alexa Fund, Amazon has invested in a number of companies that were acquired later, including a manufacturer of smart pool monitors called Sutro and a garage garage door opener called Garageio. It has also invested in Dragon Innovation, a hardware startup consulting firm that helps small electronics companies establish a supply chain and properly manage the complexities of prototyping, manufacturing, and manufacturing. logistic.

So, whether you're a small start-up or an existing company in a well-established non-tech sector, like kitchen appliances, Amazon probably has a say in your market. He's waiting to see if he needs to go to an existing position or develop his own product to enter. The end result is that Alexa is becoming more and more the software layer for the real world – in our living rooms, our rooms and our kitchens. Soon, Alexa will be in our garage door openers and pools, helping to automate the automated processes connected to smartphone apps.

"Unlike Google, which is already built into users' lives through phones, partnerships, and more – devices created by Amazon are a source of information for customers," says Wise. This is an essential point because it highlights the only avenue that Apple and Google will never lose in smartphones. Amazon's unfortunate fire phone was an attempt to uninstall the iOS-Android duopoly, and it failed miserably. And now, Apple's and Google's mobile application and application ecosystems are probably the only factors that keep the business relevant in the smart home and PDA space. cheapest speaker at home and superior search capabilities.

But owning an iPhone or a Pixel will not convince people to buy new microwave ovens, smart speakers, light fixtures or garage door openers, but all of these devices work with Alexa and speak to each other And that seems to be Amazon's blueprint: getting Alexa faster than Google Assistant and Siri, so it's not too late to convince customers to leave the Amazon ecosystem.

"Today, most consumers use voice applications such as Alexa to perform basic controls and controls -" turn up the volume, "" set the timer, "and" unlock the door. "Yet Amazon has "eyes on all the devices and devices that are part of the" smart and connected "experience of the future, which can now be anything that works in your home using electricity or battery. Amazon's goal now is for Alexa to propel them all, and with last week's announcements, it's now clear that the company is ready to go as fast as possible to achieve that goal.