EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WE
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WE HAVE SEEN TENS OF THOUSANDS DEVELOPERS WORKING ON INTEGRATING ALEXA David Kaiser German Country Manager, Alexa Skills Alexa, the voice from within Amazon is in pole position with its Alexa platform and the future looks bright As voice recognition takes off, we spoke to David Kaiser, German Country Manager, Alexa Skills, during the IFA Innovations Media Briefing in Berlin. We started by asking him how important Alexa is going to become for end users. I think it will become very important because voice is the more natural interface to interact with technology. In the past 50 or 60 years, we have switched from doing something strange – learning to type on a keyboard and using a mouse – in many user cases, this is not efficient. This is not intuitive. Voice will be much better to do this. Through Amazon Alexa, you have said that you want Amazon to become the most customer centric company. What does that mean? Everything we do at Amazon, we start with the customer. Whenever we invent something new, we start with the customer and try to solve a problem. We want to make their lives easier and better. We really care about what our customers want. What are the main things that people use Alexa for now and how is that changing as time goes on? A lot of people use Alexa for productivity and small things like setting a timer or a reminder. We see more and more people using the communication feature. Besides that, we see the entertainment part of Alexa is growing, such as listening to music and listening to media devices, but also gaming is a huge topic. What does the future look like? What scenarios are you looking at? I can’t talk about the future, but recently we have made Alexa able to control cameras, and security is a very important topic for people at home. Amazon recently acquired Ring, the video doorbell company, which enables consumers to see live video of someone ringing the doorbell. A few months back we launched Echo Buttons, which lets gamers play interactive games with Alexa as a moderator or as play host. How will Alexa drive control of the smart home? As well as no longer needing a remote, it also means that you can set scenarios, such as the smart house. We call that “routines”, where you can define your routines and Alexa can do a lot of things at the same time. One example is that as you say “good morning”, it opens the blinds and turns on the daily news briefing in your bathroom. Or another example is say “Alexa start movie time”, and it dims the lights to 20% in the living room, turns off the music and starts the TV, just with one very short, efficient voice task. How many devices are Alexa-enabled? We have a vision that Alexa, some day, is everywhere. We have seen tens of thousands developers working on integrating Alexa into products and hardware and we have more than 50 forms of different Alexa devices like smart speakers and robots, right the way up to lights with integrated Alexa. On Saturday, Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s Vice President of Smart Home will deliver a keynote at IFA. Can you give a taste for what Daniel will speak about? He will go into a lot of the new things that have come and explain how our customers interact and what new possibilities are there to interact with Alexa. In 10 years’ time, what will happen to Alexa? I’m pretty sure that we will expand around the globe and we have accelerated how we launch new countries. Alexa is now available in seven languages in many different countries and we’ve just launched in France and have recently announced in Italy and Spain for developers. I don’t know if we’ll get around the globe in one, three or, five years and I don’t know how the future will look in 10 years, but, for sure, voice will be everywhere 24
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Georg Walkenbach Member of the Board, ZVEI Beurer unveils connected health solutions A number of new products are being launched by Beurer at IFA SDAs offer many new opportunities The wide-ranging small domestic appliance market offers an even greater number of categories this year As well as being Managing Director of Beurer, Georg Walkenbach is a board member of ZVEI, the German manufacturers’ association. We asked him how he saw the major trends in the small domestic appliances category progressing this year. There are many trends. Healthy living is a big one and comfortable living is another one. It starts with air cleaning, which has experienced a sales boom; sales of coffee machines are still on the rise; and then there is the big innovation area, cordless appliances. Sales of stick vacuum cleaners have overtaken sales of more traditional products. This year the small appliances market will grow by around 3%. What are the key innovations in the kitchen? Healthy cooking is an important trend. Sales of air fryer products have been strong, as the technology offers consumers the same taste, but with less fat. This area is continuously growing. After the huge boom in juicing, this category is in slight decline, as many manufacturers have entered this space, and prices are dropping. Can you tell us more about demand for health devices? The health market is preforming well. The activity trackers area is a very competitive market that is being rivalled by the smart watch category, which is still growing. Activity trackers are struggling to compete with smart watches which have so many functions built-in– you can even measure your pulse with a smart watch. THIS YEAR THE SMALL APPLIANCES MARKET WILL GROW BY AROUND 3%. A target market for health devices is 50+, where the main goal is to ether get healthy again or to stay healthy and that’s the goal for everyone. We all reach a certain age and are well, financially independent, and now we are worrying about our health and that is constantly growing. What does the future hold for connected small appliances? Connected is an additional feature to give more value to the products, so you can do more with them. With a lot of products, connectivity will be a feature that makes sense With many trends in the area of health, Beurer is presenting a range of innovations at IFA. We spoke to Georg Walkenbach, Managing Director of Beurer, and started by asking him about the area of reducing stress. One way of reducing stress is heart rate variability (HRV) training. The term “heart rate variability” (HRV) describes the ability of the human body to adjust the frequency of the heart rhythm to different situations in life. Launching at IFA, the stress releaZer provides a new way of controlling HRV. The stress releaZer is compatible with the free Beurer CalmDown app. The app enables the user to create a tailored exercise programme with a reminder function. The training units can also be customised, for example with music and light. A weekly evaluation of the personal stress level coupled with direct feedback after every exercise further help the user to analyse and better understand how they handle stress. We understand that Beurer is unveiling a world first in the area of cellulite reduction at IFA, what can you tell us? The first cellulite releaZer has proven medical claims. We can really claim to reduce cellulite, which is a mass market. The targeted use of vibration massage with the Beurer cellulite releaZer increases microcirculation in the tissue, and encourages and accelerates the reduction of fat molecules. This demonstrably and visibly tones up the deep tissue – for noticeably smooth, firm, and toned curves. What is Beurer doing in the area of self-optimisation? Self-optimisation is a huge trend. The Beurer EMS homeStudio is a high-end EMS device for use at home. Together with the free Beurer EMS HomeStudio app, users are provided with professional EMS training. The user can choose between Fitness & Power and Relax & Wellbeing, with a total of 20 workouts available in the app. The level of difficulty can be customised and users can also create their own workouts from 50 exercises. The device comes with four cuffs and eight electrodes which are controlled via four separate channels www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Monday 27 th August 2018 25
