Jordan O'BrienAnother day, another Amazon Echo competitor – this time from Harman/Kardon. The audio manufacturer has officially announced a Cortana-powered speaker dubbed Invoke. Not only will this speaker take on Amazon’s best, however, the speaker will also be directly aimed at Google Home.
The Harman/Kardon Cortana-powered speaker was teased months ago, although the device is now official. While voice-powered speakers are currently all the rage, this speaker lacks support for the two most popular voice assistants – Alexa and Google Assistant – and instead opts for Microsoft’s own – Cortana.
Cortana is currently available on all Windows 10 devices, including Windows Phone and Xbox One. The voice assistant is a little more similar to Alexa than it is Google’s offering. That’s mostly due to the fact that it’s predominantly good at being conversational, while answering the more difficult searches will end up without an answer. It’s no surprise that Cortana is more akin to Alexa, after all, both voice assistants are powered by Bing.
While an AI-powered speaker is hardly new, Invoke by Harman/Kardon has an interesting trick up its sleeve. That’s because it supports Skype calling right out of the box. That’s not entirely surprising considering the audio manufacturer worked directly with Microsoft on this speaker. Amazon and Google are also reportedly considering adding calling functionality to their speakers, so it would give Harman/Kardon and Microsoft a leg up on the competition.
Microsoft is expected to talk about Cortana in more detail next week, so there may be more information about the Harman/Kardon Invoke then. There are few details about the speaker at this moment in time, although Microsoft is clearly hoping that the Harman/Kardon brand will translate to better sounding audio than both the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Smart home control with Cortana isn’t quite as widespread as it is with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, however. That means Microsoft has some catching up to do, although the Cortana Skills Kit is expected to launch as part of the announcements next week – which could spur a development race for the new speaker.