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Smart Homes
Source: BW Disrupt

Amazon is partnering with Embassy Group to debut Alexa-enabled smart homes in India.

These homes will be part of Embassy Group’s residential project Embassy Edge in Bengaluru and will come pre-installed with Amazon Echo range of smart speakers.

Amazon Echo
Source: Mac Rumors

Puneesh Kumar, Country Manager for Alexa Experience & Devices at Amazon India told the Economic Times that this move was a natural extension for the online retail giant since smart homes have been one of the high engagement areas for people to interact with Echo devices.

These homes will allow residents to control their smart home appliances, play music and make and receive calls from users who either have an Echo device or the free Alexa mobile app, apart from the ability to order products from Amazon.in.

While Amazon Echo devices have been available separately for purchase in India for quite a while, what’s different in this partnership is the integration of Alexa devices to these homes.

Amazon Alexa-powered Smart Home

Kumar said that switches in these homes will be Internet-enabled, due to which residents will be able to control regular non-Internet enabled home appliances through Alexa. “As a result, your cost of doing it becomes extremely low and you don’t need to buy fancy lights, bulbs, fans or ACs. Anything that you connect to the switch, you will be able to control it through Alexa” he added.

Each of the homes is expected to have multiple Echo devices, although Kumar didn’t disclose the specific details on exact devices that will eventually be integrated into these homes.

“This is a multi-year project, so it’s hard to predict which exact device will be there in the final stage right now. However, it is very easy to say that you will have a device with Zigbee that’s going to control your smart home and you will have a multi-modal device with a screen so that you can have an interface to the speaker.” Kumar said.

Source: ElProCus

Zigbee is a smart home protocol that is used by Philips and many other smart home products. As of now, only Amazon Echo Plus smart speaker features a built-in smart home hub that connects and controls ZigBee smart devices.

Embassy Group, a leading development firm in real estate commenced its operations in 1993 led by Jitu Virwani, Chairman and Managing Director of the group. The establishment has developed 45 Million Sq. Ft. of Commercial, Residential, Retail, Hospitality and Industrial Warehouse spaces and holds an extensive land bank of 1,000 acres across the country. The operation spans across Indian and international markets that include Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Coimbatore, Serbia and Malaysia.



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