Amazon has opened up its ‘Alexa Mobile Accessory’ kit to allow more developers to build the company’s voice-activated assistant into their products.
The mobile accessory kit is what developers have used to add Alexa to devices like the UE Blast and Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II headphones.
Amazon says that the kit “defines a custom protocol for transmitting Alexa audio data and control signals over Bluetooth Low Energy” so that it can communicate with the Alexa app on the user’s phone.
This kit should help developers since they can integrate with the official Alexa app instead of building a custom workaround to get the feature working on their Bluetooth device.
However, Amazon mentions that manufacturers will need to have a companion app to set up their device with Alexa for the first time.
It’s useful for Alexa users since it should help add more devices to the market so people can use the assistant in more places.
Publishing this framework is a smart move for the online retail giant. Since Amazon doesn’t have a Trojan Horse for its assistant like Google does with Android, being able to add their assistant to more devices might help more users switch to using Alexa more often instead of using their phone’s default option.
Source: Amazon
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