Intel's Speech Enabling Developer Kit aims to spread Alexa voice control further

Intel and Amazon are working together on a developer kit, aimed at making it easier for third party developers to include Amazon Alexa Voice Service on their own devices.

The Intel Speech Enabling Developer Kit aims to provide the hardware components for voice control so that all developers will have to do is write the applications for the hardware, which is said to be the first "audio front end solution" for the combining of voice processing and wake work detection on one chipset.

The kit includes high-performance algorithms for echo cancellation and noise reduction, allowing the device to work even in noisy environments.

It also has Intel's mic circular array and its dual DSP (digital signal processing) with inference engine.

"People speak and hear in 360 degrees, not just in a direct line of sight. Devices need array microphones and complex noise mitigation technology. A quality voice interaction means devices identify the speaker's location, mitigate and suppress ambient noise, and understand spoken commands on the mics, even while playing music, as well as waking up when it hears the wake word," said Miles Kingston, the general manager of the Smart Home Group at Intel.

With Amazon wanting to see its Alexa technology in more and more devices, this new collaboration seems to be pushing the world further into the smart home era.

"We can all look forward to a wave of innovation from the developer community as we transition from being simply connected to being truly smart," Kingston said.

The new kit is available for pre-order starting today for $399, although the cost will raise $100 after the presale window closes.