Xiaomi Joins Alexa Along With Facebook, Dolby, And Garmin

According to the latest reports, in September last year, Amazon announced a voice assistant alliance before its annual fall event to ensure that smart devices are compatible with multiple digital assistants. Now, nearly a year later, the alliance has been supported by more than 70 companies, including Facebook, Garmin, and the recently joined Xiaomi, apart from that Dolby also joined Alexa recently. However, Amazon’s biggest competitors in the field of voice assistants-Apple, Google, and Samsung-have not yet joined.

The goal of Amazon’s voice interoperability program is to allow companies to create smart devices that can support multiple voice assistants such as Alexa or Cortana at the same time. But without the voice assistants (Siri, Google Assistant, and Bixby) of Alexa’s biggest competitors, Apple, Google, and Samsung respectively, the idea would seem hollow.

In fact, the announcement of the three new members of Facebook, Garmin, and Xiaomi is not a big deal for Amazon’s plan, because these three companies already support Alexa:

Facebook’s Portal device integrates Alexa

Garmin’s GPS device supports Amazon’s Alexa

Xiaomi has Alexa skills, which allows the voice assistant to connect and operate its smart devices

Strangely, an open-source smart home platform developed by Apple and Google in cooperation with Amazon is expected to be launched next year, but this does not require Apple and Google to add auxiliary devices such as Alexa to their smartphones. The e-commerce giant also announced today that it has issued new guidelines to help manufacturers develop new devices that support multiple voice assistants.