AliceAmazon has turned on two new services for developers who want to build new Alexa experiences for customers in the UK: Alexa Voice Service and Echosim.io. With Alexa Voice Service, hardware makers can integrate Alexa into their Internet-connected devices, with only a few lines of code.
Crucially, using AVS, manufacturers can build Alexa’s intelligent voice control into any product with an Internet connection, a microphone and a speaker, for free, and with no experience with natural language understanding or speech recognition required.
The launch enables manufacturers to build their own Alexa-powered devices for their UK customers, allowing them to ask Alexa to play music, answer questions, get news and information and control smart home product, amongst other things.
The arrival of AVS follows the UK launch of the Alexa Skills Kit in September 2016, and manufacturers including Sonos, Invoxia and Logitech are among over a thousand developers planning voice-driven experiences.
In line with this announcement, Logitech also announced that its ZeroTouch smart car phone holder and voice-command mobile application will integrate Amazon Alexa, adding new hands-free voice capabilities and services to the car.
In addition to the launch of AVS, Amazon is also enabling developers worldwide to use Echosim.io to access Alexa in the UK. Echosim is an independent online tool for developers that simulates the look and feel of an Amazon Echo, giving users the ability to experience a realistic interaction with Alexa capabilities and skills.
Echosim.io lives in a browser, so anyone, anywhere, can access it to test Alexa skills, without requiring access to an Echo device. Developers worldwide can use Echosim.io to experience Alexa, and its simplicity makes it easy for anyone to understand what an Echo is and what Alexa can do.
Developers worldwide can access Echosim and experience Alexa using their Amazon account at https://echosim.io.