Charlie Kindel, director of Alexa at AmazonCharlie Kindel, director of Alexa smart home at Amazon, delivered a keynote on Friday morning, in which he emphasized the importance of voice technology in the future of computing and home integration. Kindel, who has more than 30 years of experience working with smart homes, posited that voice as a user interface, or VUI, will be the most significant technological development of this decade, as the internet was to the 1990s and mobile to the 2000s.
“We want to partner with CEDIA members in this next disruption,” he said. “This is an inflection point we can look back on in 10 years and say, ‘We rode that wave.’”
Kindel went on to explain the ways in which Amazon is working to grow its partnership with the CEDIA community, such as the forthcoming ability to place bulk orders of Echo Dot devices—which feature audio out to tie into distributed audio systems—to integrate in every room of clients’ homes. He then called representatives from Crestron and Lutron to the stage to stress their companies’ commitment to Alexa Voice Services, which will be integrated into both of their systems by October and November, respectively.
