After the decade-long cola wars and dot-com wars, the latest battlefield for tech companies is virtual assistants. Currently, the Google Assistant and Alexa are on top of the chain, and the likes of Bixby and Siri are attempting to catch up. Cortana exists too, nobody knows why, but it does. Yesterday, Google announced in a blog post that over 5,000 Smart Home devices now with the Google Assistant. Today, Amazon put out their own blog post, which states that Alexa is compatible with over 12,000 Smart Home devices, presumably to flex on Google.
Amazon is making it easier every day for developers and device makers to create new experiences for customers with Alexa. There are currently more than 12,000 smart home devices that can be controlled with Alexa, from more than 2,000 unique brands. Customers have already connected tens of millions of smart home products to Alexa.
It doesn’t come as a surprise, as Amazon’s Smart Speakers have been around longer. Additionally, Amazon has a firm footing in the retail market, something that Google severely lacks. Plus, if you’re a company making a smart home product, you’re very likely going to sell it through Amazon, and the jump from that to adding Alexa compatibility is just really easy at that point.
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Works with Alexa is a certification program designed to ensure customers have a great smart home experience, measuring products’ functionality, responsiveness, and reliability. When products are certified, they can carry the Works with Alexa badge in the Amazon Smart Home Store and on product packaging. This increases customer confidence knowing that the products integrate seamlessly with Alexa.
Overall, more than 2000 brands have added Alexa support to at least one product they make. The complete list is available here, but it includes only one item per brand and not all supported brands. By now, it’s clear that Google and Amazon are miles ahead of the competition, and we don’t see that changing anytime soon.
