Amazon adds Alexa "announcements" support to Beam, Sonos One and other devices

Amazon Alexa is one of the best digital voice assistant available in the market. The AI has some nifty set of features which makes the Alexa enabled devices pretty useful. The Amazon echo devices also have a feature where it enables the users to make custom announcements across the connected devices that are placed under one roof. This feature comes handy while calling out for the members be it for lunch or dinner or any meeting. The announcement feature was first announced back in April for the Echo devices. Now, Amazon has added the support for some third-party smart speakers and entertainment systems which are powered by Alexa.

The smart speakers which will be receiving the 'announcements' feature include Sonos One and Beam. With the 'announcement' feature it becomes easy to make an announcement. With the set of phrases such as "Alexa announce", "Alexa, command", "Alexa, broadcast" and "Alexa, tell everyone", a user can easily initiate a command.

With this feature, Alexa will not waste any time to broadcast the announcement in its own voice. Instead, Alexa will simply play the recording across every connected speaker in the house or office or wherever the speakers are connected. Users will also get an option to set the speakers on DND mode individually or turn off the announcements for a specific speaker from the Alexa app.

Along with the two Sonos devices, the 'announcements' feature will also make its way to the ecobee's smart thermostat, which is called as ecobee4, and Switch+ smart light switch. The smart thermostat can currently be used to read the news, however, with the addition of announcements feature it will allow the users to use it as a PA system for their home.

Overall, the feature is pretty useful and it is being expected that the feature will make its way to the other third-party smart speakers in the coming days. It all depends on how good are the terms between Amazon and the respective smart speaker manufacturers. As of now, this is pretty much the information we have on the devices that will support the Alexa announcements feature, however, we will keep you posted with the information on same.