Lavazza has launched the world’s first Amazon Alexa coffee machine. As anyone familiar with Alexa devices will have guessed, the Lavazza A Modo Mio Voicy will make coffee on voice command.
The coffee machine will retail at £249 and can be purchased via subscription at Lavazza for £50 per month, or via Amazon UK.
The A Modo Mio Voicy is part of the A Modo Mio range (this roughly translates to "my way") offered by Lavazza. Ask the coffee machine to make you an espresso, and an espresso you will get - you can even program in preferences with assigned names for different family members preferred drink size, strength and temperature.
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Typical with all Alexa devices, the new coffee machine can do much more than just making a coffee on demand. The Alexa-wielding machine will also be able to tell you the headlines, traffic updates and weather forecast - it’s just like having a handy, know-it-all barista installed in your kitchen. Further to these functions, the A Modo Mio Voicy can play music, make voice calls and control smart lights.
In addition to voice commands, the coffee machine benefits from a companion app (insert "not another one" GIF) that can be used to control specifics and order new coffee pods when your stock gets low.
The Lavazza A Modo Mio Voicy is available now for £249. Purchase the coffee machine today and get three months free of Amazon Music Unlimited.
Available through Amazon UK for £249 - plus, get free delivery with Prime.
www.lavazza.co.uk
Alexa, meet Ziggy
If you do pick up a Lavazza A Modo Mio Voicy today, there’s a good chance that in a few months, you could be asking Ziggy to make you a coffee. That’s because Amazon has launched its first non-celebrity male voice for the Alexa ecosystem, and with it, a new optional name - Ziggy.
Announced in an Amazon US blog post, the new voice can be heard here. Currently, the update is only available in the US, but it should be making its way to the UK and Europe in the coming months.
While we all tend to think of Alexa as being the actual name of the smart assistant, in practice, it’s just a wake word that devices listen out for to know whether they need to start paying attention to what’s being said. Ziggy is just a new wake word, a genderless name that can apply when using the male or female voice.
The Alexa/Ziggy thing makes sense for Amazon’s branding - the idea that everything is covered "from A to Z" is one suggested by the retailer’s logo, with its arrow joining the two letters.
There are a few reasons for the change, but one of the most precincts is the prevalence of exclusively female-voiced smart assistants. Many have called on tech names to offer an alternative, as female-only voices perpetuate the sexist idea of female servitude. Apple’s Siri and Google’s Google Assistant already offer male voice options.
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