Amazon Alexa Is Now Rolling Out to The Huawei Mate 9

At the time of launching the Mate 9, Huawei had promised that the device would receive Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, in a future update. As promised, an OTA update enabling Alexa is now rolling out to all Huawei Mate 9 owners in the US.

Labeled MHA-L29C567B183, the software update clocks in at 310 MBs in size and brings support for Amazon Alexa. The update rollout has already begun in the US as our team member Daniel Marchena has received this update on his Mate 9 this morning.

After installing the update, users will be able to perform all the commands from within the Alexa application that are currently available on the Echo speaker including:

• Home Automation: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa makes it possible to manage your smart home even when you're on-the-go by controlling lights, thermostats, locks, fans, sprinklers and more.
• Games/Trivia: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa can make every trip more entertaining with games like Jeopardy, Magic Door and Twenty Questions.
• Shopping: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa makes it easy to get more done using just your voice — Quickly create lists, order items to be sent to your home, get food delivered or have your favorite coffee ready with Amazon voice shopping, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Amazon Prime restaurants, and more. 
• Fitness/Health: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa helps travelers stay fit with access to skills like 7-Minute Workout, FitBit and Stop, Breathe & Think.
• News: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa is a convenient way to stay informed with access to news anytime via Flash Briefings from NPR, CNBC, Reuters, Fox News, The Skimm, WSJ, AP, BBC, CNN, and many more.
• Entertainment: Mate 9 with Amazon Alexa puts entertainment in reach with access to a wide array of podcasts and Audible content.

It's worth noting that Alexa doesn't support hot-word detection functionality at the moment, so you won't be able to trigger Alexa with your voice — you'll need to open the Alexa application and press the mic button every time you want to use it. We're not sure if Huawei and Amazon have purposefully dropped voice trigger functionality to avoid any possible conflicts with Google Assistant, but we really wish Huawei adds this functionality in a future update.

Last month, Google also announced the rollout of its virtual assistant for all devices running Android 6.0+ and above, and since the Mate 9 runs on Android 7.0, this will make the Huawei Mate 9 the first and only device to have both Google Assistant and Alexa at the same time on a smartphone.

The OTA rollout has already begun in the US, so if you're sporting a supported device, keep an out for the update notification over coming days.

Source: PRNewswire

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