Supplementary, my dear
Google Home and Amazon Alexa have opened themselves up to third party integration in the hopes to offer consumers even more reasons to use them.
With more features, the gadgets become essential to everyday living.
SuperJack, super man
One of the newest features added to Alexa is SuperJack, a voice activated alert system. The idea comes from the fact that not everyone has access to their cell phones all of the time, which can be inconvenient when they really need help.
SuperJack can be activated by voice or set for inactivity, which will send alerts if certain “safe words” are not heard over specific time intervals.
Once SuperJack hears your call for help, a custom message will be sent via SMS, email or over Facebook and Slack.
It’s an easier way for people to communicate and their website offers a few examples: an overwhelmed babysitter, a tenant in crisis or an elderly family member in need. The Alexa add-on is expected to launch soon.
Plenty of augments to go around
This is just one of thousands of third party services created to enhance Alexa. In order to compete with Apple’s Siri and Google Home, Amazon started expanding their features by utilizing third party integration.
It’s their strategy: Amazon wants to be everywhere.
Through Alexa Skills, people have access to a huge library of skills that they can add to the Alexa app. For example, Quick Events will add events to your Google Calendar. You can even order Domino’s via Alexa.
Google want in too
Google has followed suit by opening up Google Assistant to third party developers. They also saw the need for more user engagement with outside resources.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Partners (Buzzfeed, Lonely Planet and Quora et al) have access to Conversation actions for Google Home” quote=”Now various partners which include Buzzfeed, Lonely Planet and Quora have access to the Conversation actions for Google Home. People can interact with the services for whatever they need through a simple conversation.”]
If this trend continues, both Amazon Alexa and Google Home will have endless features. There will not be a need to use anything else, which perhaps is the point.
