The EchoXL is a large format Alexa-powered smart speaker as part of TEC’s Alexa program. Based on the current market offerings, it would be the largest of its kind. It’s form and features will be modeled after Amazon’s Echo speaker, to keep branding consistent and to also exemplify a potential line expansion. While small Bluetooth speakers still hold the largest market segment in audio, the market for larger sound systems has been steadily increasing over the past few years (as evidenced by new products from LG, Samsung, Sony, and JBL). Currently, Amazon does not have any products in this category. 

The speaker will be used as a public demonstration piece to exhibit the current technology incorporated within smart speakers, such as the implementation of microphone arrays as wells as internal room correction capabilities. The novelty factor of a scaled up Echo speaker will also be useful for press for the group’s research.

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Within the Augmented Listening team, it has been my goal to develop Speech Simulators for testing purposes. These would be distributed around the environment in a sort of ‘Cocktail Party’ scenario.

Why use a Speech Simulator instead of human subjects?

CONSISTENCY.
Human Subjects can never say the same thing exactly the same way twice. By using anechoic recordings of people speaking played through speakers, we can remove the human error from the experiment. We can also simulate the user’s own voice captured by a wearable microphone array.

Why not just use normal Studio Monitors?

While studio monitors are designed to have a flat frequency response perfect for this situation, their off-axis performance is not consistent with that of the human voice. As most monitors use multiple drivers to achieve the desired frequency range, the dispersion is also inconsistent across the frequency range as it crosses between the drivers.

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