On the sidelines of CES 2017, Lenovo has launched a new Internet of Things (IoT) product called Smart Assistant. It is in essence an Amazon Echo in a different avataar, powered by Alexa voice assistant. While functionality remains the same, what differentiates is the addition of Harman Kardon’s audio expertise.
Lenovo’s Smart Assistant is cylindrical in shape, and in fact looks like an elongated variant of Amazon Echo. For audio, the speaker boasts 5W Treble and a 10W Woofer, while the Harman Kardon version boasts an additional 2-inch sound cavity for a deeper bass and clearer tweeter. Inside are eight 360-degree mics with noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation. Lenovo claims this helps in the speakers being able to hear your command clearly from up to five meters. In other words, it should be able to hear you from anywhere in the living room.
With Amazon’s Alexa powering it, Lenovo’s Smart Assistant will be able to read you news stories, help you shop online, create lists, and more by just using your voice. Lenovo says that the Smart Assistant is “designed to run Lenovo smart home devices as well as scores of existing third-party products to expand consumers’ options.”
The $129.99 (Rs 8,800 approximately) Lenovo Smart Assistant will be available in black, grey, green and orange colors. This certainly is cheaper than the Amazon Echo, which costs $180. The Harman Kardon version, on the other hand, will set you back by $179.99 (Rs 12,300 approximately). Though pricing advantage clearly works in Lenovo’s favor, there is no real difference between Lenovo’s Smart Assistant and the Amazon Echo. If you want to opt for better audio though, the pricing advantage is also nullified.
Along with Smart Assistant, Lenovo also took the wraps off another device, called Smart Storage. As the name probably suggests, this is essentially a Wi-Fi enabled 6TB hard drive with dual-band wireless capabilities, and multi-device auto-sync features.
Lenovo says that the Smart Storage is “designed for security and P2P (peer-to-peer) access to stored media like photos, music and documents.” There is also an integrated facial recognition software, which can organize your entire photo library based on faces. Prices for the Lenovo Smart Storage starts from $130, and it will be available in light grey, green, and orange colors from May 2017.
0 comments: