Over the past couple of years, digital assistants have become extremely important and also quite popular, offering users an intelligent way of interacting with their devices. While digital assistants have been around since Apple"s Siri in 2011, they weren"t contextually aware, making them a bit robotic, somewhat unapproachable, and definitely less useful.
Amazon struck gold with its Alexa offering taking the market by storm, ushering in a new wave of products that try and make our lives that much easier. Although the firm"s Alexa is one of the most popular assistants on the market today, it is generally featured in its own products like the Echo, Echo Dot, Fire TV, and more. Despite Alexa being heavily associated with Amazon products, it has still managed to branch out and find its way into other brands devices, like Huawei"s Mate 9 and the soon to be updated HTC U11.
Now, it appears that Sony is trialing Alexa support with some of its TVs that can be controlled using an Amazon Echo or an Echo Dot. Although this is just a beta, owners of specified models will be able to turn their units on or off, control the volume, change the input, navigate to a different channel by using name or number, and more. If there is one major thing that is missing from the control commands, it"s the inability to launch streaming apps like Netflix.
If curious about trying this on your own Sony TV, be sure to check the list above to make sure you have a supported model. If so, just head to the Sony link down below for more detailed instructions on how to get everything up and running.
Source: Sony via Android Authority