Amazon Wants to Hide Alexa inside Your Web Router

Amazon – Changes on Smart Assistant Market

Amazon has made some small though substantial moves recently with its ambitions on the smart assistant market and the pipes of the internet. Initially it publicised that it would be purchasing mesh networking startup eero.Later it disclosed that it would assist semiconductor firm Qualcomm on development kit in bringing Alexa in mesh networking. Considering this, it indicates that the company tends to be interested in the development of new routers. It also portrays how Alxea can be utilised on the accesses of the internet.It is a matter of concern on how the internet’s main cloud provider could be controlling the Wi-Fi in our homes.

Mesh Networking 

Router which many are familiar with is considered to be a sole device, placed in a cabinet or beneath the stairway. The mesh networking is said to be an interconnected router known as nodes. Rather than depending on a single node for signal, the mesh networking connection is said to be divided across a mesh of nodes, wherein each one provides Wi-Fi coverage.

 However, they tend to function as single network. Moreover, there is no hierarchy between these small mesh networking routers, no central node. Should one stop functioning, the rest of the system would be capable of re-routing and proceed as usual.

Smart Home Appliance 

Since the 1980s, mesh networking had been utilised by the military and for a long time by city organisationdevelopments. However the same has now entered the home for a couple of years owing to the advancement in technology and the development of Wi-Fi where the demand of smart home appliance is on the rise.

Data site Statista, has disclosed that the revenue in smart home market is likely to increase to $35.9 billion towards 2019 which would further escalate to $53.45 in 2022. It is an understanding that more the level of smart home appliances, greater would be the dependence on steady Wi-Fi coverage.Brad Russell, research director at consulting company Parks Associates, had commented that it was not surprising that Google, Amazon and Samsung had made their way towards thismesh networking segment.

He added that, home networking was an important infrastructure for the connected home’.From the comfort point of view, merging a router with the functions of Alexa tends to make some sense. For instance, the Echo Dot has been designed to be adequately reasonable to be placed all over in the home.

Mesh Echo 

No announcement has been done by the company regarding mesh Echo though it tends to have its own mesh networking start-up eero. The work with Qualcomm would mean that the manufacturers utilising the standard chipmaker comprising of Netgear and Asus could bring Alexa to their routers.

It is here that the privacy needs to be taken in consideration. Several smart home device manufacturers have brought about awareness on the demands placed by Google and Amazon on them for provision of status updates on the activity of device. Senior director of Logitech International, Ian Crowe, had informed Bloomberg that there are relevant concerns regarding how much the system recognizes this.

Privacy policy of Eero states that the company does not keep track of the internet browsing activity though it tends to gather personal data like name, telephone number, e-mail address at the time of registering of accounts. It tends to automatically collect device data in use inclusive of the MAC and IP addresses from the associated devices. We need to wait and watch on the upcoming developments that are in store.