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Thanks to Alexa, you can control your home by talking to your smartwatch

Bruce Brown
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To allow you to talk to your wrist and cause the lights to dim, Martian Watches has just added Alexa voice control to its mVoice line of smart watches. With an mVoice smartwatch, rather than move to another room to interact with Alexa on an Amazon Echo, Tab, or Dot, you can simply speak to your watch.

Martian mVoice watches resemble traditional watches, with a small window at the bottom for notifications displayed via scrolling text. After you download and install the Martian Voice & Alerts Alexa app, you’ll be able to access any of the 5,000 (and growing) Alexa skills with your watch. Push notifications are displayed on mVoice smartwatches from configured social media, news, weather,  sports, and fitness apps, and the watches also display incoming text messages and call notifications. Now, as well, the cloud-based universe of the Alexa voice assistant will also be literally “at your (voice) command.”

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You can use Alexa with the mVoice command smartwatch to play your favorite music, get weather and traffic reports, easily order products from Amazon, tell you a joke, or control your smart home’s Alexa-integrated systems and devices. Until just recently the only way to talk with Alexa was via an Amazon Echo Alexa device, but Alexa access is opening quickly and Martian’s mVoice watches are the first smartwatches to incorporate this capability. Guess Connect watches, which include the Martian module with microphone and speaker, also support Alexa control.

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“We’re excited to work with Martian Watches to bring Alexa to mVoice timepieces so customers can easily perform everyday tasks — like controlling their smart home with Ecobee, requesting a ride with Lyft, or checking the daily news — using just their voice,” said Aaron Brown, Director, Amazon Voice Services. “Voice is a natural, convenient way to interact with technology, especially when you’re on the go. We can’t wait for customers to try this out.”

Scott Szybala, Martian Watches vice president of marketing, sees Alexa as restoring a natural form of communication in an increasingly digital world. “Today, it seems like most people communicate or seek out information through their fingers — either typing, texting, or emailing — and the use of voice as a core means of communication on smartphones was in a steep decline,” Szybala said. “But Amazon Alexa has made voice-first communication natural again.” 

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Bruce Brown
Bruce Brown
Contributing Editor
Digital Trends Contributing Editor Bruce Brown is a member of the Smart Homes and Commerce teams. Bruce uses smart devices…
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