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Amazon Alexa Shows Off Its Smart Home Muscles at CES 2017

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At CES 2017, Amazon Alexa was a huge hit and in the Smart Home exhibition section, you could see Amazon partnering with a lot of companies to show a large Smart Home ecosystem working with the Alexa enabled devices like the Amazon Echo, Amazon TapEcho Dot (2nd Generation), and Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote.  Simply by linking up their Smart Home device to the Alexa App, users can control them through any of these devices that accept Alexa voice commands.

Amazon has combined its retail marketing muscle and cloud analytics empire to create first mover advantage in shaping the Smart Home evolution.  Throughout CES, the Amazon Alexa logo was the most prominently out there much more so than similar voice controlled cloud based smart home alternative solutions like Apple's HomeKit or Google Home/Nest's Weave.

Intel was there at CES to demonstrate a Smart Tiny Home with Amazon, showing off how the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot (2nd Generation) could be used to control your TV, window shades, air conditioning, door locks, etc.

While Amazon Echo functions well as a Bluetooth speaker that is always listening for Alexa voice commands, the much smaller Echo Dot (2nd Generation) performs the same functions without having a built-in audio speaker for music.  Instead, you can connect other wired and Bluetooth speakers to the Echo Dot (2nd Generation).  For those that don't want everything you say in your house to be constantly monitored by Amazon, the Amazon Tap is portable enough to initiate the Alexa voice command only after tapping a button while also acting as portable Bluetooth speakers.  If you are in the living room, the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote lets you also speak Alexa commands after pressing a button on the Alexa voice remote while also controlling and enjoying content playback from Amazon Prime.

All around the CES show floor, you could see prominent usage of the Amazon Alexa logo at many smart home vendor booths like Netatmo, Carrier, etc.

It's amazing what Amazon has done in creating a brand new product category of voice controlled assistants and its success in leveraging that into the smart home space.  Apple and Google still depend primarily on smart home users speaking commands through their mobile devices and Smart TV products but as the race for IoT and smart home intensifies, we should expect to see more voice controlled assistant products from everyone.

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