The relatively brand new smart speaker market is slowly gaining traction as more big name manufacturers are showcasing their own products equipped with their own artificial intelligence-driven virtual assistants. Google already has their Google Home smart speaker, Amazon with their Echo, and Microsoft with their Harman Kardon Invoke.
Apple is also expected to enter the market with their own Siri-equipped device. In the midst of all this, Andy Rubin, the co-founder of Android, has now come out with a better solution. A brand new Home device that will be able to run all of the aforementioned virtual assistants in one ecosystem.
Giving consumers what they want
In a recent interview at the Code Conference at the Terranea Resort in California, Rubin explained that the way manufacturers are tackling the new market is completely wrong. He explained that everyone wants to create their ecosystems and their software. This is apparently not what consumers want as no one wants to have just one option.
Bringing it all together
According to the 54-year old programmer, the key to making a successful product in the new market is having "diversity." Having just one virtual assistant available on any particular device is "going to fail." This is where his new device, called the Essential Home, comes in.
The device, which sports a touchscreen similar to the Amazon Echo Show, will have a brand new operating system that will be able to run all of its competitor's virtual assistants.
Users will be able to access Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and other virtual assistants on the device's Ambient OS operating system.
Control everything
The main purpose of having all of the virtual assistants available on one device is for users to be able to take control of all of their smart home devices. A single device could in practice take control of an Apple TV, a Samsung smart TV, and other devices running different operating systems through the use of the device's compatible virtual assistant.
Rubin explained that he has always been a fan of hardware and software interoperability, and the Essential Home is his solution to the problem. Ambient OS will be an open source operating system that will follow a similar development process as Android.
However, Rubin mentioned that they have implemented a lot of changes to it to solve the fragmentation problem that has plagued the Android operating system. There is currently no pricing or release details for the Essential Home, but that should be announced very soon.
