Posted Tue Sep 20, 2016 at 08:45 PM PDT by Steven Cohen
Amazon's hands-free voice service is coming to the HEOS lineup.
Denon and Amazon have announced a partnership to bring Alexa voice control to the HEOS wireless multi-room sound platform. The feature is expected to launch on all HEOS enabled products by Q1 2017.
"Denon has a 100-year history of performance, innovation and design, we have always been driven to provide the best possible audio experience to our customers—and we're doing that with Amazon Alexa," said Brendon Stead, SVP product development at Denon. "We see the recent shift towards voice as the preferred interface for searching, retrieving, and controlling music as a tremendously compelling arena where we can focus that heritage of technical excellence and innovation to deliver completely new experiences."
With Alexa, HEOS users will be able to control their HEOS products using their voices, allowing them to play music, answer questions, get news and local information, control smart home products, and more through natural speech commands. The HEOS line of wireless multiroom audio products lets customers stream music from tablets, smartphones, USB storage, and internet services through the HEOS controller app for Android, iOS, and Fire devices. With HEOS, users can group several rooms together and play the same song perfectly synchronized, or play a different song in every room. Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, Rhapsody, iHeart Radio, TIDAL, SiriusXM, Soundcloud and Amazon Music playback are also included. Likewise, HEOS also supports high-res audio formats and Bluetooth.
"Amazon shares with Denon a passion for innovation and design," said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. "We are excited to collaborate with them to bring hands-free voice control to premium audio products early next year. Soon HEOS and Amazon Alexa customers will be able to enjoy the convenience of the Alexa voice service plus high-quality home audio—getting us one step closer to our goal of enabling Alexa voice control on every device within customer’s homes."
Denon's HEOS lineup features several audio products, including the HEOS 1, HEOS 3, HEOS 5, HEOS 7, HEOS Amp, and HEOS Preamp.
Source: Denon
See what people are saying about this story in our forums area, or check out other recent discussions.
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.