Global Hey Siri Wake Words Available from Sensory to Control Apple and Third-Party Devices

Following Apple's announcement at WWDC21 that Siri is now open to third-party device makers, Sensory announced availability of its global “Hey Siri” wake word, complementing its range of custom voice AI solutions. With TrulyHandsfree “Hey Siri” wake word models available in different sizes, languages, and ports for all of today’s popular DSP platforms, Sensory is fast-tracking the development of third-party Siri devices, ranging from wearables to smart speakers and beyond.

As part of its focus on voice convergence, in its April 2021 edition, audioXpress featured a contributed article by the founder and CEO of Fluent.ai, describing how increasing consumer demand for personalized experiences has sparked the creation of the company’s speaker ID technology, and exploring the challenges that this type of technology still faces. A valuable perspective from a company positioned right at the edge of voice recognition using AI and edge processing. This article was originally published in audioXpress, April 2021.

Global sales of smart speakers continued to soar in the second quarter of 2019, reaching 30.3 million units, nearly double the same period in 2018, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. With a 21.9% share, Amazon remained the leading brand. Google retained second place, followed by Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi. Apple’s smart speaker sales increased 81% compared to a year earlier, but its share fell slightly and it remained in sixth place.

Volareo, a different type of smart speaker, launched on crowdfunding site Indiegogo. Starting from $99USD for the early bird special, Volareo is being introduced as “the 1st independent smart speaker supporting open source to integrate with blockchain streaming platforms,” “backed by blockchain technology and AI.” While that sequence of buzzwords doesn’t actually say much about what makes Volareo different, saying that it interfaces with platforms where artists are paid directly and immediately for their songs played, makes it much more interesting.