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Amazon is making it easier for all Alexa devices to work together

Amazon is making it easier for all Alexa devices to work together

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Echo Spatial Perception is now available on all Alexa devices

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon first introduced Echo Spatial Perception (ESP) to its first-party Echo devices nearly two years ago. ESP makes sure that only the Echo device closest to you in your home will respond, and it’s ideal if you have multiple Echo devices. While Amazon has been trying to expand this feature to third-party devices, most Alexa-enabled devices don’t support ESP. Amazon is changing that today, and moving ESP to the cloud.

The change means that every Alexa-enabled device can now support ESP without any software changes. Cloud-based ESP will also include improved accuracy for noisy environments, making Alexa more accurate at understanding commands and questions. The biggest benefit is that all Alexa-enabled devices will now work together more intelligently in a multi-device environment.

While Amazon has solved this particular limitation for third-party Alexa devices, the company still has limits on how multiple devices work together. Alarms, timers, and reminders are still limited to each Alexa device they’re set on, and we’re hoping that Amazon is working on a more intelligent way of managing these across multiple devices.