Amazon Alexa voice service developer preview now out for third-party users

By late June, Amazon had announced to bring its Alexa voice assistant to **third-party users** . The company had also made it clear that along with hardware makers and developers, it is also targeting hobbyists. Now, Amazon is now offering the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) as a developer preview for both hobbyists and hardware manufacturers, allowing to integrate the voice service into their own connected devices. With the developer preview, it is offering access to collection of self-service  tools, documentation, and APIs and code samples. “AVS enables your customers to speak to Alexa through the microphone on your device and Alexa will respond through the device’s speakers. With the developer preview, you get access to a collection of self-service tools, documentation, and APIs and code samples to enhance your device and delight your customers with new voice experiences,” Amazon explains. Highlighting some of the benefits of the Alexa Voice service, Amazon talks about frictionless interfaces for customers, more intuitive ways with a natural language voice interface. With AVS, the customer will no longer need to get out their phone and find an app to invoke a command, instead they can simply ask via the microphone on your device. The cloud-based AVS can scale as the user’s needs scale. Amazon also promises easy integration and states using AVS to power speech experiences on your devices is completely free.