Voice assistants were once limited to smartphones but now, there are countless smart speakers to choose from. There are several advantages of using a smart speaker, the biggest being, you no longer need to have your phone around to use a voice assistant. Some of the smart speakers are affordable too, so you don’t shell more than you would on a regular Bluetooth speaker. What’s more, these speakers can double as your everyday Bluetooth speaker. So not only can your smart speaker play music from your phone, if you use a music streaming service, you don’t even need to use Bluetooth to connect to it.
The novelty of using smart speakers is being able to use voice commands to tell the speaker what you want. The instructions could be asking it to play music from your favorite music streaming service, or for the latest weather and news updates, even traffic status on your route to work. This is only a gist of the possibilities of smart speakers. You can find the entire list of routines and automated tasks the smart speakers can achieve, on the manufacturer’s site.
There are all kinds of models to choose from, spanning a wide price range. You could choose to buy just one, or maybe a few smart speakers for different rooms. Some of the models even let you make and receive calls between rooms. Some may even let you even talk from a smartphone to a smart speaker.
The three popular voice assistants’ services are Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri. You can buy a speaker built by any one of these brands, but smart speakers made by their partner brands exist too. Some have the voice assistants built into them, while some others might use the voice assistant on your phone to operate them. You are likely to find TVs, even soundbars and multimedia, and Bluetooth speakers with voice assistants built into them. However, having a dedicated smart speaker lets you have them perpetually powered on all the time, without any dependence on other devices.
The size of the speaker tells you a bit about the sound output. Smaller speakers are perfectly fine for your desk or the kitchen, where you can listen to light music and podcasts, but if you want loud and clear sound, opt for larger speakers. Most brands have variants of their models for this purpose. Take for example, Google that sells their Nest Mini and Home Mini speakers, Amazon, their Echo Dot and Apple their HomePod mini. They are way more affordable than their larger counterparts. These are also ideal for keeping in every room, but perhaps your living room deserves something like the Google Home, Google Nest Audio, Amazon Echo or the Apple HomePod. These are much larger, and way more powerful. The kind of hardware inside them are meant for high-fidelity audio and music enthusiasts. 
Smart speakers aren’t just for listening to music and answering voice commands, they are also used as the starting point for home automation. If you have heard of people automating their lights, power plug points, monitoring smoke and door alarms from their phones, many of these can also be controlled through smart speakers. Your smart speaker could tell you anytime someone rings the door bell, or you could give orders to your air conditioner to turn on and start cooling. These are the most basic of examples, but very impressive, truly futuristic solutions already exist. It’s up to your imagination to figure how you want to setup your smart home.
Most brands tend to support most smart home automation products, but it’s important to check. If you already own home automation devices, make sure that the smart speaker you are buying supports them. If you haven’t bought any hardware yet, make sure to buy smart devices that clearly mention they support Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri. It can save you a lot of trouble in the long run.
Not all speakers look alike. Some brands also sell speakers designed to look like a wall plug. One good example is Amazon’s Echo Flex. It’s perfect for home automation and it has a built-in speaker that can be plugged in every room of your home. They also double as an intercom at home, that you can use to talk to others in other rooms.
Compatibility isn’t only limited to the hardware. It’s a good idea to know which services your smart speaker supports. For example, smart speakers support a specific set of music streaming services. If you’re using Spotify for example, you ought to get for a smart speaker that streams directly from Spotify without ever using your phone. That way, you can simply call out the song you want to play on the speaker, without ever touching your phone. 
Some newer smart speakers also have built-in screens. These serve multiple purposes. They can be used as a photo frame and have photos streaming from your favorite photo hosting services on them. You can also use them to play videos from YouTube and other services. The main purpose however is displaying events and information that you ask for. This is handy since most other speakers only return information using the speakers. Models like the Amazon Echo Show and the Google Nest Hub have displays on them. Video calling is also possible on some smart speakers. They can also be a great terminal to access all your smart devices at home.
Most smart speakers use an array of microphones to detect voices even with music playing. Most smart speakers come built with as many as four microphones. These give you a flexibility to call out voice commands from a distance from anywhere in the room, with background noise.
There have been many smart speakers launched over the years, so choose the latest generation. The newer models are likely to have better audio quality, although most models receive all the software feature updates like the newer ones.
Reliance Digital is a great place to find the latest smart speakers. There is a wide assortment to choose from, and you can have a smart speaker delivered to your doorstep if you order now from reliancedigital.in. You could also walk into your nearest Reliance Digital store if you want help on choosing the best device for you. We also sell home automaton solutions ranging from smart lights, plugs, security cameras and more so don’t forget to check those out.
A quick guide to Smart Speakers
