The voice-activated personal home assistant has been hugely popular, with Amazon selling more than 3 million of its Echo in only two years. Google’s version, called Google Home, was released in November and has many of the same voice-controlled features—it plays music, gives you weather and traffic updates, relays an overview of your upcoming schedule, and even answers questions and commands.
But are you ready for a machine that can hear and see you? Word on the street is that Apple wants to set itself apart with its own smart-home device, improving the existing microphone and speaker technology of its competitors while adding facial recognition sensors. Like its iPhones, Apple’s home assistant would be based on the Siri voice assistant. That means this assistant will know who is speaking to it and the person’s emotional state. Talk about taking artificial intelligence to the next level.