It might not seem too intuitive, but a smart speaker’s primary goal is not delivering great audio. In reality, customers tend to buy voice-activated products like Google Home or Amazon Echo mainly due to the virtual assistants living inside them.
It’s fun to talk to Alexa or the Google Assistant and ask them to do stuff for you – call an Uber, play a song or turn that light off in the kitchen, right? But with all the smarts built into them, music performance seems to take a back seat. So let’s just say it out loud and get it over it – sound quality isn’t really their best feature.
Luckily, it seems that soon enough a new entrant in the market will finally bring good audio to smart speakers. Back in December, audio-giant Harman published a video teaser showcasing an upcoming voice activated speaker. The clip promised a connected speaker capable of delivering premium audio quality and now it looks like the launch it’s just around the corner. The device is expected to be powered by Microsoft’s Cortana assistant.
Now it has been revealed that a Harman Kardon speaker recently received its Wi-Fi certification via the Wi-Fi Alliance. In the product description, there’s a mention that the device is powered by Cortana, hence it must be the same device that was teased back December.
A Harman Kardon connected speaker with Cortana onboard doesn’t sound half bad – as it provides a much needed variation in the market. Speaking of variation, Samsung has been rumored to be prepping a speaker of its own too. Dubbed Samsung Hello, the device will probably be powered by Bixby, the company’s newly developed intelligent assistant.
