NXP’s Major SDK Update for Alexa Built-in Adds Support for Frustration-Free Setup Enabled by Amazon Common Software
Prequalified, turnkey NXP EdgeReady solution with BOM-cost-optimized reference design simplifies development of Alexa Built-in IoT Products.
What’s New
NXP has announced the release of its solution software development kit (SDK) v2.8.1 for the i.MX RT106A microcontroller (MCU). The new SDK release provides a prequalified, turnkey NXP EdgeReady solution for Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Integration for AWS IoT Core infrastructure, enabling developers to create Alexa Built-in devices that support Amazon’s Frustration-Free Setup (FFS). The i.MX RT106A MCU AVS Solution SDK helps device makers earn Amazon’s Certified for Humans badge by pre-integrating support for FFS, which makes setup as simple as opening the box and powering on the device. NXP achieved this software update by leveraging Amazon Common Software (ACS), which makes it faster to integrate Amazon Device SDKs on your devices.
Why it Matters
In addition to supporting Amazon’s FFS for easier onboarding to a user’s network, the i.MX RT106A MCU AVS Solution SDK v2.8.1 release adds several important new features for developers creating Alexa Built-in IoT products:
- Additional Alexa locales, enabling device makers and end users to take advantage of the large and growing number of languages, dialects and regions supported by Alexa.
- Support for the Alexa Smart Home Skill API, making it much simpler for developers to create easy-to-use skills to control their smart home devices.
- Support for a new BOM-cost-optimized NXP reference design, further reducing the cost for device makers to add Alexa Built-in to their IoT products.
“AVS Integration for AWS IoT Core reduces the complexity of integrating Alexa voice capabilities into IoT products while providing better device security, management and analytics by leveraging the AWS IoT Core infrastructure,”
“For example, Eaton’s new Wi-Fi smart voice dimmer underscores the simplicity of creating Alexa for IoT devices with NXP’s EdgeReady solution while giving end users an easy FFS experience.”
- Michael MacKenzie, GM of IoT Connect and Control, IoT Core, Amazon Web Services.
“NXP’s solution uniquely enabled Eaton to successfully achieve our goal of launching a smart Wi-Fi voice dimmer switch with Alexa Built-in, FFS and multi-language support,”
The new Eaton WFAVD30-W-BX-L voice dimmer switch, a Certified for Humans device, is available now from Amazon.com and other Eaton channel partners.
- Matt Alexander, VP of marketing, CRDS, Eaton.
“NXP has qualified as an ACS partner with its leading IoT solutions with support for Frustration-Free Setup and Alexa Voice Service Integration For AWS IoT. We are pleased to be scaling our IoT solutions together to enable new and innovative smart home devices,”
- Volker Schildwach, Director of Software Development at Amazon Lab126.
About NXP EdgeReady Solution for Alexa Built-in
NXP’s EdgeReady MCU-based solution for Alexa Built-in leverages the i.MX RT106A MCU, enabling developers to easily add Alexa voice capabilities to their IoT products. The i.MX RT106A, a member of the i.MX RT1060 family of crossover MCUs, includes an Arm® Cortex®-M7 core running at up to 600 MHz with 1 MB of on-chip SRAM.
The i.MX RT106A MCU comes with a runtime license to use the NXP EdgeReady solution for Alexa- Built-in, including Amazon’s wake words engine and an easy-to-use machine learning far-field audio front end (AFE) for noise suppression, beamforming and echo cancellation.
Pricing and Availability
The i.MX RT106A MCU is available now from NXP and authorized distributors at a resale price of $4.00 USD MSRP in 10,000-unit quantities. Industrial temperature versions of the i.MX RT106A are also available in addition to consumer temperature-rated devices.
The SLN-ALEXA-IOT development kit is also available now for $149.00 USD MSRP from NXP’s authorized distribution partners. The kit comes with NXP’s latest v2.8.1 software pre-installed for an out-of-the-box FFS experience.
More details about NXP’s EdgeReady Alexa for IoT solution, i.MX RT106A crossover MCU and its development kit are available here.
About NXP Semiconductors
NXP Semiconductors enables secure connections for a smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better, and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the automotive, industrial; IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has approximately 30,000 employees in more than 30 countries and posted revenue of $9.41 billion in 2018. Find out more at NXP Semiconductors.
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