This year Bloomberg reported that Huawei had developed its own voice assistant in China. This news got clearer forms when the US news media CNBC reported last month that Huawei intends to provide its home WiFi routers with its own voice assistant. In this way, the Chinese manufacturer wants to compete with smart devices such as the Amazon Echo. It looks like these developments are taking on more and more serious forms.
Huawei Halo, Huawei AI Cube, and Huawei Inter home
Huawei submitted three trademark applications to the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office), all of which were approved on 3 July 2018. The brand names are categorized as ‘smart speaker that integrates the functions of the router, voice assistant, and loudspeaker with high-quality sound’.
It’s about the names; Huawei Halo, Huawei AI Cube, and Huawei Inter home.
It remains as yet guessing where exactly these names will be used and whether it concerns one or more products. The ‘Huawei AI Cube’ seems to have artificial intelligence at least.
Smart speakers at IFA 2018
Huawei is not the only one who has managed to build a router into a smart speaker. At the beginning of this year, the Asus Lyra Voice was introduced; this AC2200 router is equipped with the Alexa speaker.
In addition, it is quite possible that Huawei also works on a regular smart speaker in the background. In May 2018, our Dutch colleagues at Mobiel Kopen reported on a EUIPO trademark from Huawei. Then the term Huawei iDol home was recorded in the category of voice-controlled smart audio speakers with virtual personal assistant capabilities.
Huawei is not the only manufacturer to see the future in the market of smart speakers. Also, the formidable competitor, Samsung, has its own speaker in development. This year, earlier, Samsung gave its clever speaker in the second introducing half of 2018.
Little is known about this Bixby speaker until now. We did publish last month about a patent concerning a Samsung Bixby smart speaker with camera and display. Whether this will also be the actual design remains to be seen.
IFA 2018 seems to be the right place for Samsung to unveil this smart speaker with voice assistant. It is quite possible that by that time more will be known about the Huawei smart speaker. IFA 2018 takes place from August 31 to September 5 in Berlin, Germany.
Small detail, the trademarks of Huawei have been requested by a contact person in Germany. View the trademark for Huawei Halo, Huawei AI Cube and Huawei Inter home.
