Microsoft’s new ‘Invoke’ smart-speaker is the latest competition for Echo et al

Microsoft and Harman Kardon on Monday officially revealed the Invoke, a device that will take on the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple’s rumored Siri-based device in the smartspeaker market.

This is rapidly becoming a very, very crowded space. Apple too will soon join the chorus, almost certainly releasing their Siri based model in June.

The new “Invoke” speaker has some things going for it. An all metal enclosure filled with 3 tweeters, 3 subs and 2 passive radiators, should give it the best sound of any offering thus far. It will also link with Skype to allow for hands-free calls (an offering non of the smart speakers do at the moment) and of course it will link into your online Outlook cloud. Great if you’re locked into that eco-system.

Sadly and the main reason I’m likely to never touch one of these; the only voice-AI service worse than Microsoft’s Cortana is the newly announced and derped Bixby from Samsung at this point.

Icing on a shit sandwich: Invoke will be US-only release coming later this year. Just like all the others. Booooooo.

Source: Microsoft & Harman Kardon take aim at Apple, Amazon & Google with ‘Invoke’ smartspeaker