The smart home market is at the cusp of exponential growth. By 2019, Internet of Things (IoT) manufacturers are expected to ship nearly two billion smart home devices to the tune of $490 billion in revenue. Yet, the budding industry has yet to race towards full, mainstream adoption leaving us wondering – why have so many consumers been slow to embrace smart home technologies?
The reason is two-fold. First is the high cost barrier to owning IoT devices. Nearly two-thirds of consumers worldwide think IoT devices and services are too expensive – making price the number one hurdle to smart device ownership. And second, is the lack of customer-centric design in the development of these products – leading to consumer confusion about which IoT device best serves their needs. A recent survey revealed at least 23 percent of global consumers expressed uncertainty as to which smart home device would be useful to them.
Teaming Up with Amazon
With these consumer needs and pain points in mind, Lenovo designed the Lenovo Smart Assistant, a new mainstream digital personal assistant with Amazon Alexa cloud-based voice services. Built in collaboration with Amazon, the elegantly designed Lenovo Smart Assistant recognizes users’ voice commands and uses Alexa to conduct web searches, play music, create lists, provide calendar updates and much more. And because Alexa’s brains are in the cloud, it means she’s always getting smarter.
Lenovo Smart Assistant with Amazon Alexa
Based on our own user surveys, Lenovo know that 65 percent of people around the world already use voice recognition technology on their phone, PC or tablet – and that a third of them do so because it’s more convenient than typing and useful when multitasking (cooking dinner, getting dressed for work, etc.)
That’s why Lenovo built the Lenovo Smart Assistant with eight 360-degree far-field microphones with noise suppression and acoustic echo cancellation – designed to pick up users’ voice commands from up to 16 feet (5 meters) away.
Additionally, the device comes with the option of a special Harman Kardon® edition for premium audio quality for music and home entertainment. The Lenovo Smart Assistant is also designed to run Lenovo smart home devices as well as scores of existing third-party products to expand consumers’ options.
Smartifying Every Home
“Our goal has never been to simply build smart home devices for the sake of advancing technology alone,” says Johnson Jia, Lenovo’s senior vice president, PC & Smart Device Business Group. “In the same way a person’s IQ is measured by applied knowledge, Lenovo believe products are ‘smart’ to the degree they’re actually understood and applied to daily life by their users.”
“We’re excited to work with an innovative company such as Lenovo to bring the Lenovo Smart Assistant with Alexa to customers this spring,” said Steve Rabuchin, vice president, Amazon Alexa. “At Amazon, Lenovo work hard to provide customers with as much choice as possible—and Lenovo’s new Smart Assistant speaker does just that through leveraging the power of Alexa Voice Services (AVS). Lenovo can’t wait for customers to try this out later this year.”
Lenovo Smart Storage
Rounding out our mainstream smart home offerings is Lenovo Smart Storage, a secure digital storage solution with massive 6TB capacity, dual-band wireless access and multi-device auto-sync capabilities. Designed for security and P2P (peer-to-peer) access to stored media like photos, music and documents, Lenovo Smart Storage offers users quick control of their data and files. Its integrated facial recognition software can organize your entire photo library based on faces with high accuracy.
Lenovo Smart Storage
The overall IoT market in 2020 is expected to reach a staggering $1.7 trillion, with much of that growth transitioning from the work place to the home. And by 2025, IoT may create up to $11.1 trillion per year in potential economic impact. At Lenovo, Lenovo aim to be at the forefront of this growth. The Lenovo Smart Assistant and Smart Storage are just the beginning. We’ll continue to work collaboratively with customers to imagine, design and build smart home products that they want, can afford and will use – with the vision to fundamentally improve every aspect of their home life.
Availability
Lenovo Smart Assistant starts at $129.99, available in Light Gray, Green and Orange beginning in May 2017.
Lenovo Smart Assistant Harman Kardon Edition starts at $179.99, available beginning in May 2017.
Lenovo Smart Storage starts at $139.99, available beginning in May 2017.
