Alexa Coming Soon to Headphones, Smartwatches and Other Wearables

Amazon has today rolled a new set of developer tools, including the “Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit”, that will allow Alexa to be work with bluetooth enabled headphones, smartwatches, fitness trackers and other wearable devices. According to TechCrunch, the kit is already being used by companies like Bose, Jabra, Linkplay, Sugr, Librewireless, Bowers and Wilkins, Beyerdynamic and iHome.

“Bose is excited to add a remarkable new Alexa experience for our customers,” said Brian Maguire, Director of Product Management at Bose, said in a statement. “Accessing Alexa’s music, information, and vast number of skills on our headphones will become easier than ever, and we’re looking forward to bringing our collaboration to life.”

The Mobile Accessory Kit would allow a brand like Bose to better compete with the likes of Apple and Google, each who have tied their own voice assistants to their respective Bluetooth headphones – Apple’s AirPods and Google’s Pixel Buds.

Bose has been working closely with Amazon to design, test  and refine the new kit, which will be made more broadly available to developers this summer. Amazon is now aiming to capture a larger market by offering access to Alexa, allowing hardware device makers like Bose to do what they do well, “which is not necessarily voice computing”. 

The kit, which was one of two developer tool announcements out today, follows on last year’s launch of the AVS Device SDK, which allowed device makers to integrate Alexa in their connected products. The new Mobile Accessory Kit according to Amazon is aimed at those who need a more “lightweight method to build on-the-go products”. 

To learn more about the new Alexa kit, click here.