How does Alexa work, can it connect to the internet or?

Emil Jensen wrote:

How does Alexa work, can it connect to the internet or?

 

The feature require a connection to your phone. Alexa is available 3 hours after you shut the A1 off, so there is some standby function. But the phone needs still to be available.

Hiort wrote:

 

Nice review by John:

link

Available om B&O page:

link

 

But why Alexa rather than Google....

But it is clearly not the same function,

The beosounds with Google assist is by them self on wifi,

This is apparently not, so maybe google cannot be used this way???

Emil Jensen wrote:

This is apparently not, so maybe google cannot be used this way???

That is a possible explanation.

I guess the difference is that you can use Google Assistant and Siri too, but you have to press the microphone button instead of just talking to the speaker itself.

Alexa is coming to the Balance as well. B&O aim to become “agnostic” but the ways to implement these voice assistants are more dependent on Amazon and Google than on B&O I think.

And in a way you can think of the reason why only Alexa can be used this way in a Bluetooth speaker: if you use GVA or Siri, your phone is already listening to you. So you don’t need a third party speaker to act as a microphone.

link

I like it a lot. The design changes are minor but somehow it looks more modern with a fresh look. I think it will continue the success story of the A1. What I don’t like is the status LED in the grille though. When it’s off you always see that one dark spot where the LED sits.