Car voice assistance, navigation and the Matter stand are at the top of Amazon’s CES 2023 announcements. Plus, how far are we in the era of robots powered by ambient computing?
CES 2023 welcomed back many businesses for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also the year that may be remembered as when Matter, a smart home standard, stepped into the spotlight. For Amazon, it’s an opportunity to introduce a variety of new products, partnerships and connectivity powered by Matter.
Ring and Sidewalk smart home lines are expanding
The Ring doorbell line was expanded with Car Cam, a front and rear-facing dashboard camera with similar online capabilities to the Ring doorbell. The smart sensors are activated when certain events occur, whether your car is moving or stationary.
The Ring line now also includes Peephole Cam, which can be installed on top of a conventional peephole. It is designed to extend Ring capabilities into a rental or apartment environment, Amazon said.
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The company is also expanding its ambitions with regard to Sidewalk, a community network designed to facilitate the use of smart devices for communities up to half a mile in size. Originally created as a competitor to AirTags from AppleAmazon is working on a variety of neighborhood micro-internet applications.
Auto products get Alexa and Siri
Amazon teamed up with Panasonic to work on integrating the SkipGen infotainment system into the vehicle, which enables both Alexa and Siri voice activation. It equips SkipGen with Alexa’s Auto Software Development Kit to provide over 130,000 Alexa skills options.
Here’s a handy one for electric vehicle drivers: Amazon announced that Alexa can now find and navigate to charging stations across the United States.
Disney and Amazon team up for Alexa skills
Visitors to CES 2023 may have picked up the Hey Disney! voice assistant, which will soon be available for select Disney Resort hotel rooms and via Echo devices in the home. It offers jokes, trivia and soundscapes of various Disney, Pixar and Star Wars characters. It will debut in the US via Alexa Skills Store or the Amazon Kids+ subscription at an undetermined future date.
Alexa will also connect to the Josh.ai Home Intelligence system in the future, allowing users to pair their smart home devices with Josh.ai at the same time while using familiar Alexa commands.
What is Matter?
In addition to these announcements, Amazon plans to add Matter support to smart thermostats, blinds and sensors, and the Alexa iOS app. The Connectivity Standards Alliance has created Matter as a unified, open smart home protocol. At CES 2023, Amazon announced that more than 100 million devices in the field across 30 different Echo smart speakers and creepy router models now have Matter compatibility.
“This is a major turning point for the (Internet of Things),” said Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance. “As we become more connected and break down the walls between the digital and physical worlds, we need to work together to make those connections meaningful. Matter and our members are resolutely tackling this challenge.”
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Matter 1.0 was released in October 2022.
How Amazon’s CES demos leverage edge computing
Amazon is keen to say its Astro robot incorporates “new developments in edge computing.” However, it’s sparse in detail on what that really means. Announced in September 2021, the Astro home assistant robot is one of the wave of products that seeks to take us into a world much like the science fiction of the past. It retails for $999.99; although you can get it alone by invitation.
It’s an interesting application and a step towards processing and storage in smaller packages – always a tricky dream. Facial recognition is also stored locally, Amazon says.
Ambient computing: Amazon’s stake
Amazon boasted wins for its partner startups, particularly in the field of environmental computers. Ambient computing, also referred to as “quiet computing” or “quiet technology,” aims to take IoT to the next level, allowing people to use a range of smart devices without something as intrusive as a screen.
Using embedded sensors and smart devices, the idea is for a device to have a physical map of the world around it, like Astro, and communicate seamlessly with other devices. This is of course interesting for the company behind Alexa.
As the smart home becomes more common and features like Alexa are built into new-build homes, it’s possible to see how a company could own interoperable smart devices connected through a proprietary network like Sidewalk.
One of the startups presented at CES by Amazon is Labrador systems, makers of a mobile robot that uses what they call “ambient intelligence.” Labrador uses Alexa voice commands in its Retriever robot, which is designed to provide an extra pair of hands for someone who is older or has a physical disability. The robot tags physical locations as what CEO Mike Dooley calls “bus stops,” allowing it to travel to different preset locations around a floor of the house.
Ambient computing is an extension of IoT, but it’s also a new way of looking at technology, says Deloitte. Instead of focusing on adding more things, we should focus on what those things can do.
“The goal should not be the internet of everything,” said one Deloitte white paper. “It should be the network of some things, consciously chosen and purposefully deployed.”
Meanwhile, at CES 2023, Samsung debuted the next phone in the Galaxy A series, MORAI presented its demonstrations of autonomous driving and Qualcomm announced a new one system-on-chip for driver assistance and other in-car uses.
