Canadian Amazon users now have access to millions of songs, playlists and stations with Prime Music now available.

Surprisingly late in the day, Amazon have launched their music streaming service Prime Music in Canada. From today Amazon Prime members in Canada can stream music from the website, various apps and Fire TV Stick.

Prime Music re-imagines music listening with innovative voice controls powered by Alexa. New Echo owners in Canada will soon be able to experience the simplicity of using their voice to ask Alexa for music, which makes listening to favourites and discovering new music easier and more fun than ever before.

In addition to browsing the Amazon Music app or Web Player for a wide selection of today’s hottest songs from best-selling artists including Rihanna, Shawn Mendes, Halsey, Justin Bieber, Keith Urban, The Tragically Hip and Hedley, customers will now be able to simply ask Alexa to play the music they love by playlist, song, or album title, as well as artist name, tempo, popularity or genre.

For example: 

• Want to hear your favourite artist? Just ask, “Alexa, play Alessia Cara,” and she’ll begin playing music by the acclaimed singer-songwriter.
• Want to hear tunes at a certain tempo? Ask, “Alexa, play relaxing pop music,” and Alexa will play relaxing pop music hits.
• Know what type of music you want to hear, but can’t think of a playlist or album? Ask, “Alexa, play hip-hop songs,” or “Alexa, play rock music,” and Alexa will play a range of songs and artists.
• Looking for tracks from a chart-topping artist? Just ask for the most popular songs by a particular artist, like “Alexa, play popular Justin Bieber songs.”

With today’s launch of Prime Music, Prime members are also now able to enjoy hundreds of playlists and stations hand-curated by Amazon Music’s experts from a catalog of more than one million songs, based on a variety of genres ranging from “Top Pop” to “Classic Rock,” to mixes exclusively featuring Canadian artists including “Made in Canada: Rock and Alternative,” to “Quebec Country Now,” “Acoustic Commute,” and “Chanteuse Québécoise.” Customers can now also create their own playlists based on favourite songs or new music discovered through Amazon’s personalized recommendations.

Country Manager for Amazon Canada, Mike Strauch said: “Music plays such an important role in our customers’ lives, and we’re excited to provide an even better Prime experience for Canada with the launch of Prime Music. The combination of music and natural language voice controls with Alexa, paired with playlists and stations developed uniquely for our customers, further highlights the value of Amazon Prime membership.”

Start listening to Prime Music today by downloading the Amazon Music app in Android and iOS app stores, or by visiting www.amazon.ca/primemusic. Additionally, eligible customers who are not already Prime members can try Prime Music with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime today.

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Today Amazon brought Prime Music and their AI assistant Alexa to Canada at long last.

Canada has finally gotten Amazon’s renowned AI Alexa and Echo speakers built into their range of 3 Echo speakers. With their integration of Alexa Echo speakers have become powerful assistants capable of answering questions, remembering dates, reading you messages and more.

To celebrate coming to Canada Amazon have added a bunch of unique features for Canada including a Canadian accent to Alexa’s voice. Alexa also gains local knowledge and a massive list of voice-activated apps, called ‘Skills’. Amazon anticipate that Canadian developers will create 10,000 ‘skills’ to be used with Alexa by the end of the year including ones from Air Canada, CBC, the Weather Network, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal and any more.

Amazon Alexa’s senior vice president, Tom Taylor said: “Tens of millions of customers are already using Alexa, and today we’re excited to bring her to Canada with an experience designed from the ground up for our Canadian customers.”

As well as their speakers and voice assistant Amazon have launched their music service that comes included in Prime memberships in Canada. This means anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription can take advantage of millions of stream-able tracks. With Echo speakers you can simply tell Alexa to play your music and your streaming begins!

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7digital have launched an entertainment news channel on Amazon’s new Echo, the first exclusive video content for the new speaker/screen combo.

Amazon’s latest addition to their popular Echo home speaker range adds a 7-inch screen and all the fun that comes with one. Having just launched in the UK after its US launch earlier this year 7digital are making the most of it with a new channel for everything music, film, and TV.

7digital’s new show, Entertainment News Xtra, brings visuals to their existing news channel on Echo – Entertainment News Xtra. The show will keep you up to date with the latest in entertainment news, updated daily, and will even feature special celebrity guests from time to time. They say: “Whether it’s a chat to Channing Tatum or James Corden singing his heart out. We have it all.”

With the Echo Show’s reach expanding it shouldn’t be long before we see more and more cool video content – it would make a great platform for music labels to start doing cool things with. Especially as Amazon’s Echo Show might not be the only home speaker with video for long as Apple’s HomePod sequel is rumoured to be adding visuals.

If you’re in the UK you can get your own Echo Show now from, you guessed it, Amazon and start video chatting, slideshowing and, now, watch entertainment news shows.

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The new Echo Show brings video to your home speaker and now you can stream YouTube on it, again.

The new Amazon Echo Show introduced a screen to the wave of new smart home speakers coming out since the original Echo took the world by storm. Despite seeming a perfect fit for YouTube, Google removed their video streaming site from the Show a couple of months ago. Now it’s back.

Back in September Google dropped YouTube from the Echo saying that it’s integration of their video site violated their terms of service. Reportedly the layout didn’t fit YouTube’s terms for an app on a third-party device. Now they’ve redesigned the app on Echo Show so that it looks more similar to the web version and has thus returned.

It was a fairly damaging move for the Show as it’s screen, whilst cool, doesn’t add many more exciting possibilities to the speaker video calling and watching videos. YouTube being the biggest video streaming site in the world it’s a big addition to any video capable device.

Whilst it’s great to see YouTube back on the Echo Show apparently it’s not working as smoothly as it used to. Users are citing the fact that videos don’t open in full screen straight away as an annoyance, and making it full screen is a hassle as you have to ask Alexa to do it.

THIS IS INSANITY pic.twitter.com/dYbi5w7pdD

— dan seifert of the house verge, first of his name (@dcseifert) November 21, 2017

Whilst YouTube returning is the news highlight, Amazon have also integrated 2 of the other biggest video sites in the world to the Show. Vimeo and DailyMotion were both announced to have been added to the Echo Show for all your viewing pleasure.

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India’s most popular music streaming service has teamed up with some of the worlds biggest brands for a strategic campaign.

Saavn, India’s favourite native streamer, is shaking hands with Amazon, Snapchat and a pair of strategic investors. These high-profile partnerships will see Saavn expand into Amazon Echos and offer unique marketing opportunities.

Saavn’s partnership with Amazon will see the streaming service come ‘pre-enabled’ on Amazon’s Echo home speakers which recently launched in India. With full support for Saavn Echo owners will be able to use their voice assistant Alexa to tell the Echo what to play. It will be integrated as the default player if you just tell Alexa to play music with no specific service.

For Snapchat the two companies launched a ‘partnered music lens’ for Saavn’s hit track ‘Bom Diggy’ by Zach Knight and Jasmin Walia. The lens, which will allow users to augment their face in real-time, marks a first for Snapchat who have never before had a partnership in India. The lens rolled out on Snapchat to India and neighbouring countries.

The track ‘Bom Diggy was commissioned from the two UK-based artists by Saavn as their latest exclusive. They launched it exclusively on Saavn in September but have since released it further onto places like YouTube and Spotify. It has rocketed up the charts since then with 15m streams on Saavn and 25 million across other streaming services. That includes 18.7 million YouTube views and a number 1 spot on the Itunes India download chart.

Beyond media-based partnerships Saavn have also teamed up with a pair of strategic investors: New York-based Senvest Management, who have investments in Spotify, and Los Angeles-based William Morris Endeavor. Saavn hope that these partnerships will allow them to create more partnerships and artist collaborations.

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In the new year Google will stop you streaming YouTube on your Fire TV, so no more lounging in front of cat videos for you Fire stick owners.

Starting January 1st for the indefinite future you will no longer be able to stream YouTube videos from Amazon Fire TV. This comes just weeks after YouTube reluctantly came back to Amazon’s new Echo Show speakers using the web player after abruptly taking themselves off the platform.

It’s still working for now and reportedly will until the end of December, though using YouTube on Fire TV will present you with a notification that YouTube will become unavailable from January 1st, 2018. The notification doesn’t say anything about returning to the Fire stick but does cheekily make mention of the fact there are plenty of other devices where YouTube is supported.

YouTube gave a statement to The Verge regarding the removal, showing that relationships between the two tech giants are shaky:

“​We’ve been trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services. But Amazon doesn’t carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn’t make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest’s latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and FireTV. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.”

It’s kind of funny seeing billion dollar companies get petty, but it’s also worrying for service neutrality. Up until now many devices support services from other companies because it adds value to their product and gives freedom to the customers. If companies begin looking out for their own backs only it may see a degradation in the possibilities of their products. But for now you just won’t be able to watch YouTube on Fire sticks next year.

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Amazon have added multi-room support on their Echo speakers for both Spotify and SiriusXM.

If you’re the lucky owner of more than one Amazon Echo speakers you can connect them and listen to your music from multiple rooms around the house. Amazon have just added support for 2 new streaming services so you can listen all around the house with Spotify and SiriusXM.

Amazon launched multi-room listening earlier this year with support for Amazon Music Unlimited, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Pandora. They promised in August that Spotify and SiriusXM were coming with multi-room playback support.

SiriusXM multi-room listening on Echo devices is currently only available in the US. Spotify is available on Echo with multi-room in the US, UK, Germany, Canada, and Ireland.

The multi-room function of Amazon Echo’s rivals Sonos who have built their speaker business on WiFi speakers that can be connected to each other. Whilst their products may compete with each other the two seem to be on good terms as Sonos recently added support for Amazon’s AI Alexa to be used on compatible Sonos speakers.

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Samsung are taking on Amazon, Google, Apple and seemingly everyone in tech with the announcement of their own smart home speaker.

It seems like everyone wants in on the home speaker revolution since Amazon launched their Echo speakers back in 2015 and took the world by storm. Samsung are the latest tech giant to announce their own AI powered speaker.

Samsung announced their speaker back in August, revealing that it will be powered by their very own voice assistant Bixby. As you can imagine Samsung’s speaker is being designed with their own smartphones and tablets in mind for a smooth, connected experience.

Samsung have slated the speaker’s release for 2018 with a price tag of around $200 although that might change by the release. Samsung join Apple who announced their Homepod speakers earlier this year set for release next year as well. Whilst $200 is more expensive than Amazon’s range it pales in comparison to Apples (obviously) steeply priced $349.

It will be interesting to see how universal the support on Samsung’s speaker will be. The speaker market has boomed in large part thanks to being open for use no matter what device or computer you’re using. Hopefully Samsung’s smoother experience for Samsung devices won’t impact their wider usage on other devices. This is reportedly a concern with Apple’s device – again, pretty obviously.

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Amazon’s Alexa is exploring her local neighbourhood and offering the trends she discovers back to you.

Amazon have added a feature to Alexa that allows her to play music popular in your city/area. A new feature called Local Popularity lets Alexa tune in to what’s hot in your city and play it through your Echo speakers so you’re up with your cities trends.

As simple as asking “Alexa, play the top songs in Los Angeles” or “Alexa, play the hits in Tokyo”. Alexa will play different tracks based on local trends every day with Amazon’s goal being to help listeners discover new music and get in touch with their area more.

Another update to Alexa for Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime introduces the ‘Play More Like This’ command. This update allows you to speak to Alexa anytime while your listening to music to request more songs based off of that song.

The feature can also be used to play similar songs to any other artists or track, as an alternative to starting a radio-based playlist. This means that you could say “Alexa, play songs similar to Drake” or alternatively “Alexa, play songs similar to Hotline Bling”.

These two additions to Alexa follow an update earlier last week which allows users to set alarms which play music from their Echo speakers.

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Amazon pioneered Smart speakers, then Google jumped on the train. Then Amazon launched an Echo with video, now Google are too.

Google have just announced their Smart Display, a screen with Smart functions allowing it to watch and listen to a variety of things. Sound familiar? Yes it’s basically Google’s version of Amazon’s Echo Show, the latest model of Amazon’s Smart speakers that introduced a 7-inch screen to the equation.

Google’s Smart Displays will come with Google Assistant running as a built-in AI however they won’t be making the hardware themselves. That means that, much like Google’s Android for smartphones, manufacturers will create the screened speaker hardware and Google Smart Display will be the software that makes it all run.

The first partner to come out with their own product for Google Smart Display is Lenovo who have created their own Echo Show equivalents. Lenovo’s displays will come in two options: a 10-inch model and a cheaper 8-inch model. Other manufacturers are in the process of creating shells for Google’s Smart Display including JBL, LG, and Sony.

The two different display sizes are much the same as far as software is concerned. However behind the scenes the larger 10-inch screen is capable of running at FHD resolution whereas the 8-inch screen can only perform standard HD. They both have the same power under the hood but functioning mostly as a tabletop slideshow as long as it works you should be happy.

The display works much like you’d expect with Google Assistant responding and functioning as it does in Google’s Home Smart speaker range. Of course the addition of a screen expands those functions with video calling, Google Maps support, photos hosted on Google Photos, and even YouTube playback. YouTube has been a contested matter between Amazon and owners Google who have removed YouTube from Fire TV and reluctantly returned the app to Echo Show’s after removing it from there.

Lenovo plan to release both of their Google Smart Display screens in the summer at $249 for the 10-inch model and $199 for the 8-inch model.

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The AI that has taken over households in Amazon’s incredibly popular Echo speakers will be arriving in certain cars this year.

Toyota, one of the world’s leading car manufacturers, have announced the introduction of Alexa to their cars starting this year. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week Toyota announced that they would implement the Amazon’s AI, Alexa, into a range of Toyota and Lexus cars.

With the smart AI in your car users will be able to ask Alexa to do most of the things that made her special in Echo speakers. Ask Alexa to play music, control smart devices within your car, map directions for your journey and more. In fact a lot more as Amazon boast that Alexa is capable of over 25,000 skills from third-party developers.

The senior vice president and chief information officer of Toyota Motor North America and CEO and president of Toyota Connected, Zack Hicks said: “Voice services are rapidly becoming more popular and through our integration with Amazon Alexa, Toyota, and Lexus customers will soon be able to easily speak to Alexa in their cars while on-the-go.”

Toyota said that Alexa will be integrated into their vehicles with Entune 3.0 infotainment system and Lexus models with the Enform 2.0 system. They haven’t yet revealed which models will be getting these softwares but Entune 3.0 has been announced for the 2018 Toyota Camry and they say more vehicles will be compatible in 2019.

Alexa has been available in cars before through third-party software like Muse and Ford announced in 2017 that they would bring Alexa to certain cars. Other auto-manufacturers are getting in on the AI game with Kia announcing Google Assistant in certain 2018 models.

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Since Amazon launched their Echo home speakers Smart Speakers have been taking over the world, and now there’s statistics to prove it.

New research from NPR and Edison Research shows that 1 in 6 adults in the US, which equates to roughly 39 million people, now own a Smart Speaker. Smart Speakers have actually grown so quickly that their growth is “outpacing the adoption rates of smartphones and tablets”.

The so-called ‘Smart Audio Report’ showed that 16% of American’s own a voice-activated speaker and the majority of them own Amazon Echos. The report found 11% of adult Americans own Amazon Alexa powered speakers whilst 4% own Google Homes. Interestingly 65% of those with Smart Speakers said they wouldn’t go back to life before, which perhaps isn’t as high as you’d expect though their reasons weren’t given.

Of course the holiday season was a big time for all products but the 2017 holiday period was especially popular for Smart Speakers. The Smart Audio Report showed that 7% of Americans got a Smart Speaker in the holidays and 4% of Americans got their very first one.

One of the biggest effects happening with Smart Speakers is the sudden adoption of virtual assistants helping us in our everyday life, like some pseudo-sci-fi tale. It’s making people more open to the technology as well, as 64% of those surveyed with Smart Speakers say that they’re interested in having the technology in their car.

As Smart Speakers become more and more popular the demand for other Smart tech increases and the effect is being seen in the incredible number of connected devices coming out all the time now. A lot of people are already now living in homes where they can tell a robot to switch their lights on and off, arrange their schedule, play music, find things out online, and so much more.

Welcome to the future, it’s only just beginning.

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Amazon are taking their music streaming service across the pacific to launch Prime Music in India.

Amazon are introducing the smaller of their streaming services to India after new partnerships with 2 of India’s biggest music labels. Prime Music will soon be available to all Amazon Prime members in India, offering a vast library of music to stream unlimited.

To launch Prime Music in India Amazon have created deals with Indian record labels Saregama and Zee Music. The deals will allow Amazon to license and stream music from both labels which includes Saregama’s catalogue of classic Indan music as one of the country’s oldest labels. With vintage music still highly popular in India the deal with Saregama should have a big impact on Prime Music’s arrival.

Director of Amazon Music in India, Sahas Malhotra said: “At launch, Amazon Prime Music listeners will enjoy hundreds of especially hand-curated playlists across their favourite eras, genres, and artists.”

Prime Music is the original streaming service from Amazon which they offer as a free extra with an Amazon Prime subscription, which gives you next-day postage, a Netflix-like video service and more. They also offer a stand-alone, premium music streaming service called Amazon Music Unlimited.

Amazon Prime Music comes with over 2 million tracks and a bunch of playlists and stations from Amazon’s music staff. Amazon Music Unlimited is a full service that offers a similar experience to Spotify with a comprehensive music catalogue and thousands of curated selections. In addition Amazon Music Unlimited is available cheaply for streaming through an Echo device only, at a discount for Prime members, or the standard cost of $9.99 a month for non-Prime members.

Amazon Prime Music will launch for Prime subscribers in the coming weeks.

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Amazon’s full music streaming service is going down under in February as it launches for New Zealand and Australia.

Amazon’s newest music streaming service Music Unlimited is coming to Australasia. Amazon have announced that Music Unlimited will launch in Australia and New Zealand on February 1st.

Amazon first found moderate streaming success (or significant depending on how you look at it) with Prime Music, a stripped back streaming service that came bundled with an Amazon Prime subscription. Then last year they launched Amazon Music Unlimited, a standalone streaming service with a full music catalogue and features you’d expect from a full streaming service.

The launch of Amazon Music Unlimited will also see the launch of Amazon Echo speakers in these new territories. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand you can pre-order an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Plus for delivery early next month at www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B078GTRR5L.

Amazon Music’s head of international expansion, Sean McMullan said: “We’ve seen phenomenal feedback from customers who use Amazon Music Unlimited, and we’re thrilled to bring an entirely new world of music streaming possibilities to listeners in Australia and New Zealand. We’re opening doors for our customers to have access to an incredible catalogue of music, and to be able to listen to some of their favourite artists while using the power of voice in exciting new ways.”

Amazon Music Unlimited will be available through three monthly plan options: the Echo Plan, offering full access to Amazon Music Unlimited at the breakthrough price of $4.99AUD/month on a single Echo, Echo Dot or Echo Plus; the Individual Plan at $11.99AUD/month; or the Family Plan, coming soon, which will allow up to six members of a household to share a subscription for just $17.99AUD/month. Learn more at www.amazon.com.au/music.

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Following in the steps of rivals Amazon and Google, Apple’s first step into the realm of smart speakers is approaching launch day.

After Amazon revolutionised tech assistants with the Amazon Echo and Google tried to build that further with the Google Home, Apple are ready to launch their copy for double the price. The Apple HomePod launches 9th February, and you can pre-order it now for the steep price of $349.

The HomePod comes a few years late to the game, Amazon having founded the home speaker market 4 years ago already. Coming so late to the game, and from a brand such as Apple you would think that this must be the definitive home smart speaker but in fact it doesn’t really add anything except a far bigger price tag.

The HomePod does actually boast it’s supposed high-fidelity audio quality using seven multi-directional tweeters and one woofer. Apple opted against using a mid-range driver in their speaker which most home speakers come with but Apple are confident that their quality will be superior. Whether this truly equates to better quality we’ll have to experience for ourselves.

Beyond audio quality the HomePod is a pretty basic smart home speaker with the basic features of it’s rivals. It has Siri built in with multi-directional microphones for voice commands which allows you to play music, get the news, arrange your planner and so on – the usual.

We’ll have to see what the reviews say but Apple’s speaker is almost double the cost of competing smart speakers like Google Home ($129) and the Amazon Echo ($99 or cheaper). Maybe once it comes out everything will make sense but it seems now that Apple are in for a shameless cash grab, and unfortunately it will probably shift good units.

Until it launches, here’s some aggressive brand-vertising:

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Apple’s version of the Amazon Echo is available now and sounds unbeatable, but as a home speaker it’s incredibly restrictive and… Apple-y.

Apple revealed last year that they would be bringing out their own home speaker following the massive success of Amazon’s Echo speakers. They’re a few years late to the party so Apple needed to make their speaker stand out and it’s audio quality definitely does that – but reviewers are saying that’s about all it has to offer.

So lets start with the positives, as a speaker the HomePod does incredibly well. Within it’s compact marshmallow design (it’s foamy exterior makes it feel like a marshmallow too) are eight individual speakers. There are 7 tweeters and 1, four-inch woofer behind the HomePod’s powerful and crisp audio.

The HomePod also has 7 microphones but talking to Siri is only what 6 of them are for. A microphone in the centre of the HomePod is able to measure the location of the woofer so that Apple can control the bass in the speaker precisely. This and other features were part of Apple’s, fairly successful goal, to create audio that doesn’t just sound good but adapts to always sounds great.

But beyond how it sounds Apple have yet again made a product that is all about Apple. It works great linking with iPhones, playing music from Apple Music, and so on. But Siri just doesn’t add up to the incredible AI power of Alexa or Google’s Assistant, and if you want to use her with services other than Apple well it’s unlikely it will work.

That’s not to say you can’t stream Spotify through the HomePod, but it’s not going to be the seamless experience you get with other home speakers. This is the real shame with the HomePod because you could almost justify paying over double the price of an Amazon Echo for the amazing audio quality, if the speaker did everything else to a good standard. As it stands the HomePod is a whole lot of potential for a whole lot of money, but it just doesn’t stand up.

The Verge have done some great reviews on their time with the HomePod:

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Amazon have added one of the most requested features to Echo speakers so you can make and stream playlists without the touch of a button.

There are thousands of things you can ask Alexa or tell her to do, and that list just got one big feature bigger. Creating playlists on Amazon Music is as simple as telling Amazon Echo to create a new playlist, then add whatever songs you like and stream away. The playlist will be saved to your service.

Amazon are making it easier to track and explore music with every move, trying to make modern, tech-filled home life as convenient as can be made with voice control. Unfortunately Amazon have only added this ability to Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited on the Echo speakers.

When your listening to an Amazon music service with Alexa, give it a go by saying:

• “Alexa, add this song to my playlist”
• “Alexa, add this to my playlist”
• “Alexa, add this to my ‘Studying’ playlist”
• “Alexa, create a new playlist from this song”
• “Alexa create a new playlist”

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Just in case there weren’t enough smart speakers in the world following Apple’s HomePod launch Facebook are getting in on the trend.

Earlier this month Apple launched their long-teased Smart home speaker to go up against Amazon’s beloved and well established Echo speakers and Google’s rival Home speakers. Now Facebook are reportedly getting in on the market with 2 smart speakers planned for launch by the end of July.

A report from DigiTimes says that Facebook plan to enter the smart speaker market in the middle of 2018, breaking onto the scene with 2 new models. Both speakers, nicknamed Aloha and Fiona, will feature 15-inch interactive screens, putting them in direct competition with Amazon’s Echo Show speakers (pictured above) launched last year.

DigiTimes reportedly received the information from industry sources who said that Facebook want to enter the global speaker market as it booms in popularity and ever-growing competition. Their devices will likely focus on the social functions of a smart speaker with a screen such as video calling and messaging through Facebook’s Messenger.

According to the sources the Aloha speaker will be “more sophisticated than Fiona”, though both will be designed by Facebook’s Building 8 hardware lab and be fitted with 15-inch interactive touchscreens. Reportedly Aloha will be marketed as ‘Portal’ and will use voice commands like other smart speakers but also feature facial recognition for logging into people’s Facebook.

DigiTimes also say: “Facebook has signed music licensing contracts with Sony and Universal Music to enrich the device’s applications. Facebook is planning to build its own ecosystem for video consumer devices in the next five years, and the smart speaker is just the initial-stage product, with more terminal devices expected to be rolled out in the coming years, industry sources said.”

The speakers are apparently slated for release before the end of July this year, so Facebook will have to make an official announcement soon enough for people to distinguish them from all of the other Smart speakers out there.

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Spotify are branching from streaming into “category defining” hardware products, and going head to head with the busy Smart speaker market.

So after Apple launched the HomePod earlier this month, joining Amazon, Google and other tech companies, we thought there couldn’t be more talking, streaming speakers. Then this week happened and now it looks like Facebook could launch 2 Wi-Fi speakers later this year, and now Spotify are getting in on it.

Spotify revealed that they’re looking to get into making audio hardware last April when they posted a job ad for a senior product manager of hardware. They were searching for someone who could build “frictionless and creative Spotify experiences via fully-connected hardware devices … akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles”.

Now a new series of job positions reveal more about Spotify’s plans as they move away from an entirely digital business. In their new advert for an Operations Manager of Hardware Product, Spotify say: “Spotify is on its way to creating its first physical products and setting up and operational organisation for manufacturing, supply chain, sales & marketing.”

Whilst they don’t explicitly mention the products that are in the works for Spotify it’s highly likely that they are looking at creating a smart speaker. As more companies enter the market for it, its becoming a more-and-more competitive sphere. Apple’s recent entry HomePod notably omitted Spotify functionality, and the biggest speakers on the market are created by Amazon and Google – both of whom have their own streaming services and music stores.

Earlier this week rumours circulated from industry sources that Facebook are also entering the market with two screened speakers, in the vein of Amazon Echo Show speakers which have a built in touchscreen for watching slideshows, short videos and video calls. According to those sources Facebook are planning to launch both of their products by the end of July this year, so we don’t have to long to find out whether it’s true or not.

The post Spotify are also apparently making a Smart speaker because everyone is now appeared first on RouteNote Blog.

Later this year Samsung will join just about every tech company in the world right now with the launch of their own smart speaker.

So in a month where Apple have launched the HomePod and Facebook and Spotify are both now rumoured to be developing their own smart speakers, Samsung have revealed more about their upcoming Bixby speaker. At the Mobile World Congress, DJ Koh the president of Samsung’s mobile division confirmed that their Bixby smart speaker will launch in the second half of 2018.

Details are still limited on Bixby’s design and features despite having announced the speaker back in August last year. We can safely assume that Samsung will likely tie it in with other Samsung devices as a hub for a connected home. Of course beyond that we can expect usual smart speaker features like music streaming, a smart assistant, reminders, the weather forecast, and so on.

DJ Koh said: “I want to focus on more premium.” He didn’t specify what that meant so it could refer to the audio quality, their user experience, or even premium streaming services. When they last spoke on it Samsung set a price of roughly $200 which is roughly double the cost of Amazon’s main Echo speaker which kicked off the smart speaker revolution.

In comparison to Apple’s recently launched Homepod however it is still nearly half the price. Whilst Apple’s new speaker has been praised for it’s audio quality, limited Siri functionality has dampened it’s reception.

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