Qualcomm has announced its plan to make a smart speaker development kit based on the Smart Audio Platform at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018. The new kit will be available in the first half of 2018.
According to Qualcomm, the new development kit will help developers and audio manufacturers to simplify the development of smart speaker products at various price points. “The platform is designed to be a unique end-to-end single-vendor smart speaker solution integrating our unique and powerful processing, as well as Proprietary audio technologies engineered for high-resolution audio, networked audio, echo cancellation, beamforming, noise suppression and barge-in wake-word detection.
“With support for both Linux and Android Things operating systems, as well as voice services from major cloud providers, the Smart Audio Platform offers manufacturers a variety of choices to help them participate in the growing smart speaker opportunity,” Qualcomm said in a statement.
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Interestingly, the development kit offers a reference design for smart speaker devices. The design features a six-microphone array and speaker housing to support far-field voice interface and high-performance wake word detection. The reference design also comes with 360-degree sound experience. Qualcomm has also announced that its Smart Audio Platform also supports Google Assistant, Cortana and Amazon Alexa, which makes it easier for manufacturers to make smart speakers featuring the virtual assistants.