Smart home assistants have just become so 2016. If people want to hear their AI, they can hear the best quality music from the same place too. So SoundHound partnered with Boombotix to make a wireless speaker, that doubles as a voice assistant!
SoundHound’s Hurricane is equipped with 10-watt subwoofer and echo cancelling microphone
It’s a great tie-up, since SoundHound is known for its audio recognition and coupled with Boombotix – dealing with high quality speakers, make for an excellent team. The smart speaker will feature SoundHound’s Houndify voice recognition and conversational intelligence program. The smart speaker will go by the name Hurricane and users will be able to properly interact with the voice assistant, being able to request complex tasks and even uphold basic communication. It’ll also feature LED lights to acknowledge that it’s recognised the user’s voice.
“With our mission to Houndify everything, we are thrilled to support Boombotix in creating a connected speaker that you speak to naturally,” said Katie McMahon, VP and GM at SoundHound Inc. “As the first screenless device that incorporates Hound’s voice interaction, including the ability to ask compound and complex questions and seamlessly follow up, this connected speaker will amaze and delight.”
The Hurricane can be prompted when the hot word “OK, Hounce” is used, followed by the command. Users will be able to ask the smart speaker to play some “chill music” or “something new”. And the Hurricane will deliver. Apart from that, Houndify provides news, weather, sports, news, stocks, health tips, food spots and Uber requests for its users. SoundHound has shown that it doesn’t compromise on music quality too, with unit coming with its own 10-watt subwoofer and an echo cancelling microphone that makes it easier to carry outside because of its range and power. It won’t be garbled up by any ambient sound for sure.
Also, a noteworthy feature about the Hurricane is, that unlike most of its competition like the Alexa, there’s no need to enable new features. Everything already comes preloaded onto the device. They are also called Domains by the folks over at SoundHound and there are over 150 of them currently. The speaker can be found on Kickstarter right now for those interested in pre-ordering. It’ll ship to customers later this year.
Houndify can also be downloaded to function on iOS and Android for free for those who want to give the software a test run. Although it might seem like the most unlikely of brands to come up with their own smart home solution, they do know what they’re doing. It’s a good idea to mix an audio speaker with the features of a home assistant.
And we’re excited to see it stack up to the competition in real life when it’s out by the end of the year.