Electronic controller manufacturer E.D.&A. is seeing demand for voice control increase among machine and device manufacturers. The home automation functionality of smart speakers in particular is offering them opportunities.
Integration of smart speakers with a home automation functionality
Consumers are now increasingly using voice control, for example when operating home automation applications at home. Electronics manufacturer E.D.&A. is seeing the demand for voice control increase among its customers and their end users. In other words, this means the integration of smart speakers. The best-known examples are currently Google Home, Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Siri (Apple).
The home automation functionality of smart speakers in particular appeals to machine and device manufacturers. Ever more machines and devices are coming on to the market that you can also connect to the smart speaker to operate them in this way.
Voice-controlled commands operate machines and devices
The smart speaker first always sends the voice command to the cloud, meaning a web server somewhere on the internet. That server knows which machines or devices are linked to the speaker and what possibilities they support. It decodes the voice commands and converts them into commands. These commands are then returned to the correct device via the internet in order to execute the command. Google Home and Amazon Alexa also have a smartphone app. In that app you also see the connected machines and devices, so that they can also be operated via smartphone.
Voice controlled demo
To visualise and test the principle of voice control, E.D.&A. built a demo set-up with several RGB LEDs, a few relays and a fan, as well as a smart speaker. E.D.&A.’s electronic controller is equipped with software to operate, in this case, a fan (on/off) and lighting (on/off, dim). An important point in this regard is the way in which E.D.&A.’s electronic controller tells the cloud what it supports and also how it is secured, so that nobody else can send commands to the electronic controller. Demo @ESEF (NL), booth 03A085 – 17.03-20-03.20
