Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Hey you! Skullcandy lets you talk to multiple voice assistants at once

Simon Cohen
By

Now that we seem to be living in a world where every major tech company has its own voice assistant, wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply access any of them, at any time, from any smart device with a microphone? We’re not there yet, but today Skullcandy announced a new feature that gets us closer than ever. Later this year, you’ll be able run Amazon Alexa, Skullcandy’s own Voice AI, plus whichever assistant came with your smartphone, all simultaneously, and they’ll all be accessible via their respective wake word, like, “Hey, Alexa.”

Skullcandy Grind Fuel true wireless earbuds with SkullIQ technology.
Skullcandy

This magical marriage of voice AIs uses technology from Native Voice, a company that has only been in existence since 2020. Native Voice partnered with Skullcandy to give its Skull-IQ platform these unique features. So that means, for now, the coexistence of all of these voice assistants is something you can only get when using Skull-IQ-enabled wireless headphones or earbuds from Skullcandy, like its Grind Fuel.

Recommended Videos

Skullcandy’s Skull-IQ system already let its users access other personal assistants, but it was a bit cumbersome, requiring that you first say, “Hey Skullcandy, assistant,” before being able to ask Alexa (or another AI) what you wanted to know or do. With this new feature, you can say “Hey Skullcandy,” Hey Alexa,” or (depending on your device) “Hey Siri” or “OK Google.”

Related

In fairness, this multi-assistant environment isn’t just the product of Skullcandy and Native Voice. It also owes a lot to Amazon’s Voice Interoperability Initiative (VII) — an effort by Amazon to spearhead multi-assistant access on devices.

Wondering why anyone would want to talk to Siri, Alexa, and any number of other AIs on the same device? It turns out, as you may have already personally experienced, that not all voice AIs are created equal and many of them possess specific strengths that the others lack.

A great example of this is the recently released Sonos Voice Control (SVC), an AI that only runs on Sonos microphone-equipped speakers. SVC has been designed specifically to be the easiest way to control what a Sonos speaker (and multiroom system) can do, with just your voice. But it’s not connected to the internet, and it can’t answer general questions or perform tasks like countdown timers the way Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri can. With Amazon’s support of multi-assistants, Alexa and SVC on the same Sonos speaker at the same time, giving you the freedom to assign your specific task or need to the best AI for the job.

For now, Amazon’s Alexa is the only major voice AI that will run alongside other AIs on third-party devices, but it has yet to introduce other voice AIs on its own Ech0 smart speakers. Google still prevents any device that runs Google Assistant from running any other voice AI, and Apple’s Siri is still confined to just Apple’s own products.

Your first opportunity to try up to three assistants at once will be at the end of 2022, when Native Voice and Skullcandy update Push Active, Grind, and Grind Fuel earbuds with the new feature.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…
‘Hey Skullcandy’ is the newest hands-free voice assistant
Skullcandy Grind Fuel true wireless earbuds with SkullIQ technology.

Skullcandy has just taken the wraps off two new models of true wireless earbuds, the $100 Grind Fuel and the $80 Push Active. But what makes these earbuds different from Skullcandy's previous models is the inclusion of the company's new software, called SkullIQ. This gives you a hands-free voice assistant that's triggered by saying, "Hey Skullcandy," and it works on both iOS and Android platforms. It also includes the ability to trigger certain smartphone features directly from the earbuds' control buttons, as well as launch Spotify with your voice.

Most true wireless earbuds give you the ability to speak to your phone's native assistant, whether that's Siri or Google Assistant. Some models add the ability to speak to Amazon's Alexa, too. Only a handful, like Sony's $280 WF-1000XM4 and JBL's $200 Tour Pro+, let you access these voice assistants hands-free. This makes Skullcandy's new SkullIQ-enabled true wireless earbuds the most affordable models to offer this kind of technology.

Read more
JLab Go Air Pop vs. Skullcandy Dime: Which ultra-budget buds are best?
JLab Go Air Pop and Skullcandy Dime charging cases with open lids.

It’s hard to believe that it’s even possible to buy a set of cheap true wireless earbuds for less than the price of two movie tickets, but thanks to Skullcandy and JLab, that’s where we are. What’s even more amazing is that their ultra-affordable products (the $25 Skullcandy Dime and $20 JLab Go Air Pop) don’t suck. They both offer decent sound, good build quality, and even some modest protection from water. But is one of these products better than the other? And should we assume that if the answer is yes, that it’s the more expensive set of buds that are the best?

There’s only one way to find out, so we put them head-to-head.

Read more
New firmware lets Jabra Elite 85t talk to Amazon Alexa
Jabra Elite 85t

The Jabra Elite 85t are a fantastic set of true wireless earbuds -- in fact, they top our list of the best true wireless earbuds you can buy -- but now, thanks to a firmware update, they're just a little bit better. That's because you can now choose between the built-in voice assistant on your phone (likely Siri or Google Assistant) and Amazon's Alexa.

The update makes the Elite 85t one of the few models of wireless headphones or true wireless earbuds that lets people talk directly to Alexa, the voice assistant that Amazon includes in its line of Echo smart speakers and Fire TV streaming media devices.

Read more