Huawei Announces AI Enabled Smart Speaker

Earlier this month, Huawei released their Mate 20 series smartphones in London. And now, the company has launched the Mate 20 trio in the Chinese market. Along with the Mate 20 smartphones, the company also launched a smart AI speaker which draws a lot of inspiration Apple’s HomePod.

The Rise Of AI Speakers

HomePod

With the advancements in AI (Aritficial Intelligence) and Virtual Assistant technology , the smart speaker market is getting very hot. Top tech companies are working hard to grab their shares in this new industry. Companies like Google, Amazon & Apple already offer smart speakers and recently the Chinese tech titan Huawei, has jumped on the bandwagon with a budget AI speaker.

Huawei’s Fatboy AI Speaker

While the overall design is pretty similar to that of the Apple HomePod, the LED ring on the top and the four control buttons remind us of another smart speaker. The AI speaker from Huawei looks like a chubby sibling of the Alexa powered Amazon Echo Plus. The speaker has a cylindrical design with control buttons on the top. It has 6 michrophone pinholes on top and a circular ring light around the controls. The Huawei AI speaker has 4 top mounted buttons to control all its functionalities. It includes volume up & down button, mic mute button and a call receive button. The AI speaker can be connected to a smartphone and directly receive calls.

The Huawei AI speaker uses a 2.25 inch sound driver that has a power output of 10 W along with two passive bass radiators. The company claims these help in creating a more natural sound effect and powerful bass performance. For acoustic systems and design co-creation, Huawei partnered with Dynaudio which is a Danish loudspeaker maker. The smart speaker uses Huawei’s “Histen” algorithm which is a music equaliser and sound effect controlling software available on their smartphones.

The brains of the smart speaker are powered by Huawei’s “Xiaoyi” voice assistant which enables it to interact with HiLink supporting smart devices like lights, air purifiers, security cameras and more.

Also read: Huawei Mate 20 Pro Launched in China With New Variant

The Huawei AI speaker has a price tag of 399 CNY (around Rs. 4,000) which is much less compared to other smart speakers available in the market. Huawei is yet to comment on it’s global launch or the date of sale.