Aqara, a Chinese smart home brand under Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem, announced it would have voice assistant support by the end of this year, including Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Siri, and maybe Google Assistant as well.
According to YouTube channel Xiaomify, Aqara showcased several new products and new voice capabilities at the Shanghai technology conference.
The new products include a lightbulb, a new Cube Controller and a second-generation smart door lock which allows users to unlock the door through a physical key, keypad or fingerprint sensor on the handle.
The company also showed that
its products can work with Amazon Echo devices. It will release both Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit support in the second half of the year, as reported by Xiaomify.
It isn’t clear whether Google Home support will also be included, since Google services are banned in China. Xiaomify said Aqara is planning to “embrace all major platforms of smart speakers,” where Google Home was also mentioned.
Aqara is a smart home brand based in China, owned by a smart home company Lumi United. After receiving funding from Xiaomi in 2014, Lumi United has joined Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem and launched smart home kits in the Chinese market. It isn’t certain what kinds of products from Aqara will add HomeKit and Alexa support. The brand owns connected devices from smart switches, sensors, smart locks and, light bulbs and a packaged smart home system.
The Aqara support with help Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa build up some customers in China, considering Xiaomi is a major electronics brand there.
On the other side, it might simply be a new feature for Aqara in the North American market, since Alexa, Google and Siri are widely used in the smart home scenes. Aqara currently sell its products in the U.S. on Amazon.com.