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AMAZON BUYING WI-FI COMPANY FOR ITS SMART HOME: Amazon announced that it will acquire home mesh Wi-Fi provider eero for an undisclosed sum. This is just the latest in a line of acquisitions in the home space for the e-tailer — in the last few years it purchased Ring and Blink. The move could enable Amazon to plug a hole in its wider smart home ecosystem that could, in turn, grow adoption of its Alexa devices and help to transform that use into revenue.
Amazon has recently encountered a connectivity issue with its Echo Wall Clock. The device was losing its connection to the Echo devices, which handle communication with the cloud-based AI that powers Alexa. The result: Instead of being a part of an always-listening smart home, the Echo Wall Clock became a traditional analog clock. The issue still persists, and the Echo Wall Clock remains unavailable. Currently, the clock connects to the existing smart speaker via Bluetooth, rather than directly to a home Wi-Fi network. What this means is that the clock needs to remain relatively close to that speaker — Amazon advises that it should remain within 30 feet of the device. But apparently, even within the recommended range, some devices haven't been connecting properly. That prompted Amazon to launch its ongoing investigation and to pull the clock from its digital shelves.
The acquisition of eero could be part of the company's long-term strategy to provide more reliable connectivity for devices within its smart home ecosystem and head off additional connectivity issues. Though it appears that, for now, eero will continue to provide devices and Wi-Fi service under its own brand, Amazon could do well to begin to incorporate the company's underlying technology into its other devices — especially Echo smart speakers. Business Insider Intelligence postulated that the issues with the Echo Wall Clock could prompt Amazon to take steps in this direction, and buying eero offers the company the tools to do just that, building mesh Wi-Fi directly into its smart devices to reinforce coverage throughout the home and stop depending on less reliable standards like Bluetooth. This could also help Amazon to negate one of the potential advantages its chief US smart speaker rival Google boasts in the space, given the search giant's own mesh Wi-Fi offerings. And by making devices more reliable, Amazon can help to boost engagement and consumer reliance upon them, which could in turn translate to more data on those users to target web ads as well as direct voice-shopping e-commerce sales.
NOKIA EXPANDS WING IoT UNIT: Finnish telecommunications leader Nokia announced that it's expanding its Worldwide IoT Network Grid (WING) program to include new types of ready-made IoT solutions. In particular, Nokia is releasing four new solutions across a range of sectors that network operators will be able to partner with the company to deploy. These solutions are in the fields of:
- Agriculture: Nokia's new agricultural solution will tap into sensors to get data on the environment, soil, and crop growth, and offer insights on a service basis for farmers to manage crops.
- Livestock: The solution will use location sensors and biosensors to monitor animal welfare while informing users of potential issues with growth or health in order to improve yield.
- Logistics: Again operating as a service, Nokia plans to help network operators offer global tracking of goods moving through supply chains to ensure timely and efficient delivery.
- Asset management: This broader service is meant to allow telecoms to enable their customers to monitor global operations using various assets and at multiple facilities through a single service and interface.
These broad categories of ready-made solutions for customers can make Nokia a key partner for telecoms. The company's solutions can tie into a telecom's network and be a part of the latter's pitch to potential customers, offering these telecoms a plug-and-play path to expand their IoT offerings and become solution-providers rather than just connectivity providers.
GOOGLE FOCUSING ANDROID THINGS ON SPEAKERS, DISPLAYS ONLY: Search giant Google is shifting the focus of its Android Things platform, initially announced to support IoT devices of all stripes, to center exclusively on smart speakers and displays, according to a post on the company's Android Developers Blog. Other devices that are part of its wider Google Assistant-powered smart home ecosystem will be supported by the Google Assistant Connect program, a framework for partners to incorporate some of the AI's features into their devices and allow companies to connect their devices to a consumer's existing Google Home smart speakers, which handles communication with the cloud. What this means is that Google will only allow original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to develop solutions using Android Things for a select set of devices and chipset designs from companies like Qualcomm, NXP, and MediaTek. The main goal of this move is likely to ensure that any OEMs developing Assistant-powered smart speakers or displays are sufficiently powerful to deliver the sort of experience that Google wants consumers to expect from these devices. This could in turn prompt them to buy additional Assistant devices — either speakers and displays powered by Android Things or more basic Assistant Connect devices — and further enmesh themselves in Google's voice and smart home ecosystem.
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ERICSSON, INTEL PARTNER FOR 5G SERVICES: Swedish networking leader Ericsson and microchip giant Intel announced that they're collaborating to enable 5G-based services for communications providers, according to Mobile World Live. Specifically, the companies are planning to align their development of software-defined communications infrastructure that will create more agile and reconfigurable networks, which will in turn enable both the delivery 5G networks as well as edge computing services that could relieve the burdens placed on that communications infrastructure. Both companies stand to benefit from the global rollout of 5G networks that's underway in 2019, as telecoms upgrade both their physical network infrastructure and the hardware that controls their networks. Both companies have partnered with others in the space as well: Intel is working separately with Huawei, Baidu, and Alibaba to develop 5G and AI services for China, while Ericsson has long-standing partnerships in various sectors with AT&T and Qualcomm, among others, and recently staked out its new approach to the cellular IoT market.
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