Why You Should Think Of Building Voice Enabled Applications for Smart Speakers - Read Time: 3 Mins
📅 June 17, 2018
•⏱️4 min read
Introduction
While I was listening to a podcast episode from Talk Python which was talking about building voice applications using Flask-Ask.
At that point of time, i was thinking about how interesting will it be to program Amazon Alexa enabled devices like Amazon Echo.
Which lead me to writing this article and also sharing my knowledge in a 1 hour workshop during PyCon APAC 2018.
Building a 1 Hour Workshop In PyCon APAC 2018
So I started to do research on how to develop those voice applications in Python and why i should do it.
The next step for me was registering my workshop topic to teach participates of PyCon on how to build it. Which after researching on how to build it and reading a book on "Crush It".
Below is the reasons that i believe as a software developer. It will be a great place to pick up skills in building voice enabled devices.
I will be attaching the learning materials by the end of this article regarding on the Alexa Skills workshop i taught in PyCon if your interested to build it.
Reason 1 - Growing Demand For Voice Enabled Devices
There's large growing demand for voice enabled speakers like Amazon Echo series, Google Home devices and Apple HomePod in 2018.
Which for Amazon Echo was the top best selling product for Christmas in 2017. To date Amazon Echo devices has sold for more than 20 million units alone. This does not include both Google and Apple voice enabled speakers alone.
Reason 2 - Back from the Dead, Return of the Podcasts
There's a resurgence of podcast content creators, editing tools, podcast apps coming out of the woodwork as more and more people are exposed to it.
They are developing new content for educational or just for entertainment purposes with listeners ranging from 18 - 34 years old who are tech savvy and highly educated with a minimum of Bachelor's Degree.
Reason 3 - Voice Driven Shopping Sales
At the time of this writing Amazon is the only company offering their Amazon ecosystem. Which allows anyone to directly shop with their Amazon Alexa enabled devices.
Image the possibilities it will open for more and more companies or podcast creators to include online shopping as part of their advertisement or just to support those podcast providers.
Conclusion
After researching about building voice apps. I believe that it's a great skillset or specialization for software developers to go into due to the reasons above. Essentially there's a land grab for software developers with the skills.
That may prove to be transferable as well as more and more people started to use voice assistants to do search or buying things online with their own voice. Which was what really amazed me when 'Siri" came out for IPhone.
Links
Amazon Alexa Skills
https://developer.amazon.com/alexa
Google Actions
https://developers.google.com/actions/
Building Alexa Skills WIth Flask-Ask
https://github.com/steelwolf180/weather_reader
Building Alexa Skills With Python and Flask
https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/146/building-alexa-skills-with-python-and-flask