If you attended the Consumer Electronics Show this year, it was easy to tell that Amazon’s Alexa was present almost everywhere. From smartphones, to appliances and even little robots. So it’s easy to say that Amazon is gunning for AI with Alexa. But for that to happen, it needs more devices to be available around its customers in order to conveniently use the service.
They key idea here is to take the confusion out of the shopping experience and allow customers to quickly buy what they think is right product without pondering over anything. And Amazon’s new service helps it accomplish just this.
Echo, Bookshelf
The Amazon Echo
The Seattle Times reports a new smart-home consultation service that will have Amazon employees come to your home and demo smart home products. After that the representatives will make personalised recommendations on what you need to buy (smart thermostats, linked plugs etc.) to make your home smarter.
Amazon Smart Home Consultation
While one would conclude that it adds to the confusion, it’s a win-win for Amazon here. Amazon not only gets to sell its home automation products like the Echo (and others) but its voice assistant will also make it easier for its customers to shop.
The win for the consumer here is that they get personalised recommendations on what products they need to purchase to make their homes smarter and even get to try them out. At the same any confusion regarding the possibilities of home automation are also cleared in the process.
The web page shows the three step Smart Home Consultation process which includes booking an appointment, a 1-on-1 with an expert and getting recommendations.
The Smart Home Consultations by Amazon are free and for now seem to only be available in the US market.
Amazon has yet to bring its Echo speakers to India. One of the smaller problems associated to this could be the internet bandwidth as it also happens to be one of the check boxes for US customers before anybody gets to jump on to the smart home bandwagon.