Amazon Sees Alexa-Themed Devices Ending The Smartphone Era

Amazon is working on a future which will deem smartphones unnecessary, according to a new report. Fast Company reported Wednesday the retail giant is working on a range of Echo devices which will upsurge the need for smartphones by taking up its functions such as access to notifications and apps.

“The tenet that we believe in is that voice is a simplifier. And once you design voice actions, then go back to a touch action, you’ve actually removed a lot of friction because you’ve started at a different baseline,” Miriam Daniel, Amazon’s head of product management for Alexa told the publication.

The company has presented a future scenario where the presence of its Alexa voice assistant will be omniscient and traverse from smart speakers such as the Echo Dot to touchscreens, obliterating the need for carrying around a smartphone.

The most important component of this paradigm is Alexa’s shift from being just a voice assistant dependent on audio to a smart assistant capable of use on touchscreen devices. The company is working on designing visual components for Alexa. However, instead of apps, the company’s visual devices will provide the user with a list of potential actions, which can be performed using both visual and voice input.

For example, in an Alexa themed smart home, saying “good night” or swiping on the screen would turn off lights, lock doors, and set alarms.

This projected scenario could siphon away user’s attention from smartphones and cut on their use, similar to how smartphones affected PCs a decade back.

The company’s vision seems interesting especially since Amazon itself failed at making smartphone — its Fire phone was a dud.

Amazon emphasizes that the shift away from smartphones toward Alexa based devices is good. Access to smartphones and internet has created a slew of distractions, causing detrimental effects on the users’ health such as a short attention span. Instead, in the new paradigm, users will be expected to have quick, purposeful interactions. Interacting with Alexa themed devices would be a collective effort rather than individual interactions using a smartphone.

“We’re trying to get people away from all the personal electronics and create more of a family, communal experience. So you’re not just looking down into your individual phones, and you’re actually collaborating with your family members,” Daniel said.

An Alexa based connected platform may also be beneficial for developers since it won’t be overcrowded like the Google Play Store or the App Store.

They will be able to create new experiences and new app discovery options in Alexa.

Unlike on smartphones, where people use the same apps every day and it is tough to get them to download new ones, app discovery could be built into an Alexa based platform. This would provide more scope for users to discover new apps rather than the traditional app stores.

While Amazon’s vision is ambitious, it is difficult to execute since app developers would be working on creating new experiences with voice and visual input from the ground up. It also faces challenges such as dealing with a multitude of notifications on its devices. Another big challenge would be training Alexa for thousands of potential actions.

However, if Amazon succeeds in building such an ecosystem, it could move far ahead of its rivals. Chances are that if it succeeds, it still is not able to totally obliterate smartphones like smartphones haven’t been able to obliterate PCs. But, it could finally take humanity out of the lure of smartphones into an era where devices aren’t just a one-stop shop for needs but more focussed on creating a well-rounded consumer experience.