Amazon Alexa Update Brings Assistant's Skills To Home Theater TV, AV Receivers

Amazon’s Alexa has made it onto a variety of platforms in the past few months and the virtual assistant will head into home TVs next.

In a post Thursday, Amazon confirmed that Alexa will now be able to support home theater equipment like TVs and AV receivers natively. As part of these new functions, users can now call for Alexa to control functions like device power and playback. These skills can also be natively controlled straight from Alexa without having to go through a secondary skill prompt.

Read: New Amazon Tech Support Program Installs Your Alexa-Powered Smart Devices

At launch, the skills will be available on devices from Sony, Logitech and BroadLink. These include Sony 2017 4K TV models, the Logitech Harmony smart remote and BroadLink smart home hubs. According to Amazon, companies like Denon, LG and Crestron will be releasing Amazon skills for their own home entertainment devices in the future.

For Amazon, the update is not the first time it’s introduced Alexa into home theaters. Fire TVs and Fire Stick set-top devices have featured Alexa integration on their remotes, allowing users to do basic controls like playback and opening up apps. However, the current update is much larger in scope and allows developers to directly pull from Alexa’s skills development for further control of devices.

The update also ties into the online retailer’s increased focus on the smart home market for Alexa. Within the past year, the company has made significant efforts to bring Alexa onto platforms besides its Echo home speaker. At CES 2017, Alexa functionality was showcased on smart home devices like ovens and washing machines. Since formally opening up Alexa skills to developers in 2015, Amazon has benefited from developers who want to integrate the virtual assistant into their products.

Earlier this week, Amazon also formally launched a tech support program specifically for smart home setup. As part of the program, it can bring authorized agents to your home to help set up or install smart home devices like lights or home theater equipment.

Read: Who's Winning The Voice-Assistant Speaker Market?

Amazon’s willingness to bring other developers into the fold has also played a big role in the success of Alexa. The company’s Echo series of speakers — ranging from the budget-priced Echo Dot to the new touchscreen-enabled Echo Show — have been a boon for its control of the burgeoning smart home speaker market. According to an April survey from research firm eMarketer, the Echo has roughly a 70 percent market share of the home speaker space.

The increasing popularity of Alexa and the Echo has also inspired its share of competitors in the smart home market. Products like the Google Home and the upcoming Apple HomePod feature smart home integration and Microsoft will drop its joint-produced Harman Kardon speaker later this year.