Posted Thu Jan 4, 2018 at 12:50 PM PST by Steven Cohen
Three wireless speakers with DTS Play-Fi now offer "Works with Amazon Alexa" capabilities.
DTS has announced the arrival of "Works with Amazon Alexa" support for several DTS Play-Fi enabled speakers. The initial lineup includes the Phorus PS10 wireless speaker (MSRP $249), the Onkyo Smart Speaker P3, and Pioneer Elite Smart Speaker F4 (MSRP $200). In addition, the feature is set to be added to other DTS Play-Fi devices like the Klipsch Stream wireless multi-room audio lineup, and products from McIntosh Laboratories, MartinLogan, and THIEL Audio by the end of Q1 2018.
"We continue to expand our range of Alexa voice control solutions available to licensees, making DTS Play-Fi the first open wireless multi-room audio platform to offer both integrated Alexa Voice Services (AVS) and Works with Amazon Alexa," said Dannie Lau, general manager, DTS Play-Fi, at Xperi. "We look forward to continuing to forge a strong relationship with Amazon, the most widely recognized and adopted voice service on the market."
Owners of the Phorus PS10, Onkyo P3, or Pioneer F4 can now enable the new feature through the "Works with Amazon Alexa" over-the-air firmware update. Once enabled, the upgrade will allow users to control audio playback on their speaker from another room via voice commands through an Amazon Echo, Amazon Dot, or Amazon Show. In addition, all three models also feature their own integrated far-field microphone systems in order to support the Alexa Voice Service.
Meanwhile, the speakers incorporate DTS Play-Fit tech as well, enabling customers to wirelessly play high quality lossless music from smartphones and tablets over an existing Wi-Fi network throughout the home. The tech can synchronize playback of a single source to multiple speakers; can stream different sources to different speakers simultaneously from the same mobile device; and can support individual music streams to separate speakers from different devices at the same time. Likewise, Play-Fi is not brand exclusive. This means that Play-Fi audio products from different manufacturers can actually work together seamlessly.
"We're thrilled to offer the Pioneer Elite Smart Speaker F4 and Onkyo Smart Speaker P3 as the first speakers in the DTS Play-Fi ecosystem that can be controlled via Amazon Alexa," Nobuaki Okuda, director and CTO, Onkyo Corporation and president, Onkyo and Pioneer Technology Corporation. "With this update, consumers can not only control their whole-home music system using their voice with our speakers, but using a third party voice control product as well."
Source: DTS
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