Ladies and gentlemen, introducing China’s answer to the Amazon Echo, the LingLong DingDong. Just in case you missed that, it’s called the LingLong DingDong.
You’d be forgiven in thinking that this was the ramblings of some chubby western bloke, trying to convince his mates down at the local pub that he knows Mandarin, but it isn’t. These are the actual names of the company and product. You can stop stereotyping now and we’ll take a closer look.
The Amazon Echo is not available in China, it doesn’t support Mandarin and with JD.com and Alibaba pretty much in control there, it’s unlikely the Echo will ever be available to buy in China.
This means that with China’s rapidly growing smart-home market, reportedly on course to be worth $22.8 billion by 2018, the DingDong is all set to be a must have in China.
The DingDong does however lack in support and features when compared to the Echo, but this is a problem LingLong are aware of, and are already on the way to rectify.
Some of their current plans are to make the technology available to smart-speaker manufacturers and they have made the voice platform available to developers, in the hope they can bring more apps to the device, of which it is lacking in both quantity and quality.
LingLong has also reached out to Amazon in the hope that they can collaborate on their respective projects. LingLong has offered their Mandarin language and voice for use on the Echo, although I am unsure of the demand for that in the west, more language support couldn’t be bad.
In return, LingLong wants Amazon to add Alexa to the Dingdong. This could be the only way in which Amazon can get the Echo over to China, and it they just might take it, any presence in China would be a bonus, and being offered such a simple route into their market seems too good to be true, but we will see what they do going forward.
Have you used the Amazon Echo yet? Do you think Smart-homes are the future, or are we just getting lazy?
-Alexa , you touch my tralala , oh my ding dingdong