BWhen a radio conference opens in 2018, a smart speaker has to be on the stage, saying ‘hello’. This came very fast as smart speakers became available to the mass market only in 2016. A smart speaker is a type of wireless speaker and voice command with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and handfree activation with the help of several words. When Amazon unveiled it’s Echo speaker with Alexa voice control we got one step closer to realizing the old sci-fi dream of interacting with a machine using simple voice commands.
Tom Webster, vice president of strategy and marketing Edison Research from the US said: “Smart speakers are changing how we think about machines and they will change our way how we use technlogy.” Nearly everyone has a smart speaker on their smartphones called “Siri”. Smart speakers like Siri are changing how people are using their smarphones. With Siri you are able to do things without looking at the display all the time. That’s a positive effect smart speakers could have. “When we listen to more audio smart speakers some people spend less time on the phone and on the TV”, said Tom Webster. For some people a smart speaker like Alexa is the radio at their home. “Radio in the kitchen, radio in the living room, now you have a radio where there wasn’t one before – having a smart speaker”, said Tom Webster.
According to the smart audio report, once smart speakers are are in a household, they replace traditional radio the most. Smart speakers are also replacing 39% of the time the participants used to spend with television. 65% of smart speaker users are listening to more music since getting the speaker. 28% are listening to more news, 20% are listening to more podcasts and 18% are listening to more audiobooks.
By Natalie Vogl
