A stuartup called Josh.ai recently jumped on the smart home development bandwagon and claimed it can design a better voice-control system than Siri and Alexa. With its new funding, the company also plans to launch a smart speaker soon.
A stuartup called Josh.ai recently jumped on the smart home development bandwagon and claimed it can design a better voice-control system than Siri and Alexa. With its new funding, the company also plans to launch a smart speaker soon.
Josh.ai’s solution kit includes a Mac mini, an iPad and software that runs the automation system. After turning on the Mac, the software in the computer will automatically discover smart devices in the home network and guide users through the gadget-connecting process.
Homeowners will be able to control the devices through voice command. Josh.ai’s system will process automatic speech recognition computing in the cloud while the Mac mini will handle natural language processing to figure out what the commands are exactly.
What makes the new solution stand out is its language recognition capability. Just by saying “turn it off,” for example, the system will know what device to control because it remembers what was previously turned on. Or just say “it’s hot here,” and the system will adjust the thermostat to cool the house down.
Also, the system can handle complex commands said in one sentence. For instance, “play Spotify playlist in the kitchen, turn on the living room lights and get to Netflix on Modern Family.”
Users can use “Josh” as the wake-up word, or simply set up another based on their preferences.
Founded in 2015, Josh.ai lauched the system the following year for high-end homes and is sold by professional integrators for $10,000. Until now, the company has sold between 50 to 100 installations and is said to support smart home devices from more than 50 manufacturers.
Thanks to its ability to understand language complexity, Josh.ai’s voice processing capability performs better than other solutions on the market, including Alexa and Siri.
The company has recently closed a US$8 million new funding deal and plans to launch its own smart speaker later this year. To date, the company has raised US$11 million in total.