Response to Week Discussion 7

Running head: APPLE HOMEPOD, AMAZON ALEXA, AND CONNECTED DEVICES 2

APPLE HOMEPOD, AMAZON ALEXA, AND CONNECTED DEVICES 2

Apple HomePod, Amazon Alexa, and Connected Devices

Santosh Shrestha

University of Cumberlands

Business Intelligence - ITS-531

Dr. Steve Hallman

August 12, 2020

Apple HomePod, Amazon Alexa, and Connected Devices

Apple HomePod is a virtual personal assistant by Apple. It consists of a great design, high fidelity speaker, Siri integration, tightly integrated apple music, and third-party music service support (Chase, 2019). It is required to be connected to the wireless network to communicate with other devices. It can connect with various smart devices such as Philips hue, Nest Cam, Smart refrigerator, and many more. The mechanism behind these connecting devices is that they have the capability of integrating with Apple HomePod. The account associated with these devices must be authenticated and, most of the time, connected in the same network. The HomePod functions as a hub for HomeKit, Apple’s smart-home platform (Chase, 2019). Smart devices such as Philips hue bulbs require a hub device to communicate with HomePod.

Amazon’s Alexa is undoubtedly the most selling virtual personal assistant device in the market. One of the most prominent examples of connected devices is Smart Plug. This plug can be controlled using Amazon Alexa and can be used to plug any devices and obliterates the idea of having to purchase a “Smart” device. iRobot Roomba, the smart vacuum cleaner is one of the popular smart devices that can be controlled using Alexa. Similarly, smart home surveillance cameras such as Ring Video Doorbell can be connected to the view live video on an Amazon Echo Show, the video-capable Amazon Alexa device (Griffith & Colon, 2019). In recent years, smart connected devices popularly referred to as the Internet of things (IoT) have gone mainstream and introduces much scope as well as security concerns.

References

Chase, J. (2019). Apple HomePod review: it only sounds great.

Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/apple-homepod/

Griffith, E. & Colon, A. (2019) The best smart home devices for 2020

Retrieved from https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-best-smart-home-devices-for-2020