curious who is going win the smarthome race. i know Alexa has broader applicability but looking to understand specific to Smarthome space. Every single appliance now is getting smarter and is connectivity enabled. Alexa seems to employ a strategy making Echo products ubiquitous through cost and serving that as a hub for smart home products whereas Apple is building the Homekit framework to entice accessory providers to build made for apple products. I am curious to know if any has thoughts who is eventually going to win the race and what will be the outlook in 5/10 years
Google Home/Nest ftw. I haven't even heard of HomeKit before, is it out yet?
Haha. Living in a Google bubble buddy? Been out years back and there is a big ecosystem of products
Got a Plantronics headset with Alexa built it. Turns out Alexa can start my car and change the A/C at home, two things Siri can’t do.
The problem with HomeKit is Apple is too restrictive about what it lets employees develop outside of work. I can’t even release a free safari extension, let alone sell one. When I was at amazon and they released the echo, employees were encouraged to produce skills for it, outside of work, to help it grow an ecosystem. Those developers you are employing are some of the best developers in the industry, have the most motivation for kick starting something like that and could be your best evangelists. However Apple restricts them from promoting it. In the current world though, even governments are trying to restrict that.
Alexa is way too far ahead in comparison with HomeKit. One because of the ‘voice’ and that’s a real game changer; HomeKit has Siri but Alexa grew much faster than anyone thought it would! They support a whole ton of devices on their platform. Last I heard they were at 60,000 devices, not sure what it is now. Compare that with HomeKit or anyone else, nowhere close. With every new iOS release, it’s become a challenge for Apple to atleast have parity with existing features and ensure it’s not broken, forget promoting newer features. Look at all the things you can do with Alexa, and it’s hardly broken. iOS 13 was a real disaster for HomeKit.
Alexa. In 10 years, Alexa will blow you.
Why and how?
You forgot to say “away”.