How is Alexa Elevating Smart Home Experiences in the ME Region?
Six million smart devices are now connected to Alexa, over 90% more than last year, enabling customers to lap up the benefits of its AI assistant.
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Smart home devices are becoming more prominent in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as a total of six million smart devices are integrated into the everyday lives of Alexa customers, who are enjoying the benefits of a connected smart home.
Customers are turning to Alexa to control lighting, air conditioners, TVs and cameras – among the most popular smart home devices categories. In 2023 alone, Alexa customers in KSA and UAE have initiated nearly 130 million smart home actions and over 100 million requests to listen to music, Quran and podcasts, totaling more than 70 million hours of listening.
How are Alexa’s smart devices enhancing lifestyles?
Throughout 2023, Alexa turned the lights on and off over 24 million times in homes across the UAE and KSA. Customers in these two countries turned to Alexa nearly 9 million times to control their air conditioners only by using their voice, the second-most frequently used device category.
Customers from the Middle East usually have multiple compatible devices connected to Alexa, demonstrating the growing adoption of voice-enabled home automation. There was a +50% YoY increase in Smart Home customers in 2023 vs 2022, with a +90% YoY increase in number of smart home devices connected to Alexa. No wonder Alexa heard “I love you” over 2 million times in 2023, and received 60,000 marriage proposals!
Dr Raf Fatani, Regional General Manager, Alexa, Amazon MENA, said, “The UAE and Saudi Arabia are embracing cutting-edge technologies with palpable excitement. We’re humbled by the adoption pace of Alexa and our smart home devices, welcoming ambient intelligence into daily lives across the region. Ambient intelligence weaves together AI, devices, and services for an experience greater than the sum of its parts. We’ve invested in local talent and resources to tailor our products for these markets, ensuring Alexa and our devices cater to unique customer needs. We’re excited to be at the forefront of AI advancement in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with an unwavering passion for customer obsession here.”
Alexa seamlessly integrates with a large number of smart home devices to simplify and automate customers’ lives. Amazon has recently added a new feature for customers in UAE and KSA to enable the multi-view option. This allows customers to see live feeds from up to four cameras, including Ring, on their multimodal devices. Customers can also ask Alexa to show their recently active cameras or all those belonging to a specific group, with a command such as “Show my Living Room cameras”.
Mohammad Meraj Hoda, VP of business development, MEA, Ring, said, “Ring is driven by the goal to provide our customers with peace of mind. We continue to focus on making homes more intuitive, as well as making it easier to connect and control devices so that everything works together effortlessly.”
Also Read: Cracking the Customer Feedback Code with AI
Adaptability with popular smart home devices
Alexa’s customers in the UAE and KSA are making use of integrated smart home hub in Echo devices, with support for a variety of standards like Zigbee, Sidewalk, Thread, Bluetooth, and Matter, enabling easy control of compatible lights, locks, and sensors.
The most commonly used lighting brands in smart homes in the UAE are Smart Life, Xiaomi, and Surplife. In the television segment, the top brands connected to Alexa are Samsung, LG and Broadlink IR Remote. For cameras in the region, Ring, Eufy, and TP Link reign supreme. When it comes to climate control, customers in the region turn to Smart Life, LG, and Honeywell.
