Harman International, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, focused on connected technologies for automotive, consumer and enterprise market has launched the Harman Kardon Allure in India. The Harman Kardon Allure is an intelligent speaker, with Amazon Alexa support.
The new Harman Kardon Allure lets the user control, and provide commands to Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. Users can ask Alexa to do certain tasks like playing music, reading out the news, telling a joke and make purchases on Amazon. The Harman Kardon Allure is also equipped with proprietary, far-fetched voice technology which helps the speaker listen to your voice commands, even if you’re having a house party and in a noisy environment.
Harman claims that the Harman Kardon Allure speaker produces a 360-degree sound that is made possible by transducers and built-in subwoofers. The built-in 360-Degree, multicolored lighting adapts to surrounding environment easily. It connects to phones and other devices over Bluetooth v4.2.
Amazon’s Alexa arrived in India this October, and right now, users can enjoy skills from across sectors like Travel (Uber, Ola, Goibibo, Jet Airways), order Food and hear recipes (Faasos, Box8, Freshmenu, Zomato, Tarla Dalaal), get Sports & Entertainment updates (Amazon Prime Music, Saavn, ESPNCricinfo, Bollywood Hungama), News and Education (Times of India, NDTV, ABP Live, AajTak, Byju’s), Home Services (UrbanClap, Housejoy) as well as control their Smart Home (Syska, Phillips, Silvan) with their voice.
Commenting at the launch of Harman Kardon Allure Speaker in India, Sumit Chauhan, Vice President – Lifestyle Audio Division at Harman India said, “We’re excited to launch this much sought-after product in India. Ever since its launch at IFA in August – we have seen tremendous interest and demand for the Harman Kardon Allure from our Indian customers. Research shows the number one use of digital voice services is music streaming and Allure with its premium sound quality, iconic design, and exceptional voice-enabled technology, will produce a spectacular sound experience while delivering on our promise of elevating a connected life through smart technology.”
The Harman Kardon Allure been priced at Rs. 22,490 and is now available exclusively for Prime members on Amazon India.
Not very good integration with Alexa/Echo
The audio quality is amazing as one would expect from Harmon Kardon. What is disappointing is the integration with Alexa/Echo is extremely basic lacking most features one would consider standard on any Echo enabled device. The device does not support multi-room audio nor are you able to customize the settings at all. No ability to enable a sound when you wake Alexa. No ability to customize the sounds at all. The HK app is for setup only. It has no customization settings aside from device name. Settings within the Alexa web page for the device are missing all customization settings. I was also surprised that HK support was completely unfamiliar with the product. I’m hopeful HK does some work on this.