Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant platform kind of came in under the radar. Amazon’s track record for their products seem a bit like a mixed bag, where some things work surprisingly well, like the Kindle Fire tablets, and some things fall flat on their faces, like the Fire Phone. With Alexa, which debuted on the Amazon Echo, it fell into the former camp.
Alexa has been steadily gaining traction and recently it seems that it has managed to find its way into the Neato Botvac Connected robot vacuum cleaner. If you own the Botvac Connected, what this means is that you’ll be able to use Alexa to command the device. Some examples include asking it to start cleaning, and also asking it to pause/resume cleaning, which will come in handy if you’re talking to someone on the phone and the Botvac is a bit too loud.
Of course you will need a device that has Alexa on it, such as the Amazon Echo, Amazon Tap, or the Echo Dot. However if don’t own any of those devices or even the Botvac Connected for that matter, not to worry as Neato has announced a bundle in which customers can purchase the Botvac Connect and get a free Echo Dot thrown in, as long as it is purchased via Amazon’s website where it is priced at around $750.