The Amazon Echo is remarkably useful. Alexa, the digital personal assistant within the cylindrical black gadget, plays music, helps with recipes, and orders stuff online. One thing it cannot do, however, is speak Chinese.
The LingLong DingDong can.
The name may sound funny to you, but this gadget is no joke. It could introduce millions of people to the power of a voice-activated, cloud-based smart home speaker. And it could help introduce the Echo to China.
Companies like Amazon and Google want their voice-enabled smart speakers front and center in your home. These clever devices are designed to be your primary interface to almost anything. Using nothing more than a wake word and a simple sentence, you can get the weather, set alarms or maintain a shopping list, and control your lights and locks. Whichever product and platform you choose becomes the focal point of your interaction with the internet. According to one report, China’s smart home market alone could hit $22.8 billion by 2018. “We think that the voice is most natural way to connect,” says Charlie Liu, LingLong’s senior marketing manager. “You just need to say what you want. We think it is really a huge market...”
