Amazon Alexa Invading More Smartphones

Tough times for Siri and Google Now: Lenovo and Amazon are partnering to integrate Alexa into Moto smartphones, and the first product will be an Alexa "Mod" attachment for the Moto Z smartphone.

The partners will first focus on developing an Alexa "Mod," a block that will attach to a Moto Z modular handset. The companies will then integrate Alexa directly into a variety of Moto handsets and devices, Lenovo said during a press conference in Barcelona on Sunday.

The Moto Z is much like Google's Project Ara, where individual parts like speakers and projectors can be added to boost the functionality of the handset

Lenovo said that "later this year" owners of its Moto Z smartphone will be able to buy a Moto Mod with Amazon Alexa. The company did not reveal the exact details of the Alexa Mod for Moto Z nor did they reveal the pricing.

According to Lenovo, Moto Z users will be able to ask Alexa to turn on the heating when they leave work so that the house is warm when they get home, or more prosaically simply add milk to a shopping list.

Later this year Lenovo will integrate Alexa more fully into its smartphones so that you won't have to unlock the phone first.

"With our Amazon Alexa Moto Mod, you can easily perform everyday tasks while on the go, like controlling your smart home, checking the news, requesting a ride from services like Uber, and more -- using just your voice," the company said.

Lenovo isn't the first smartphone maker to add Alexa; last month Huawei announced that Alexa will be built into its Mate 9 handset.

Essentially, the voice assistant will be continuously active, waiting to hear commands, for which the Moto phones will always need to be listening, much like the Echo or Echo Dot. That gives Alexa a distinct advantage over Google Now, for which phones need to be unlocked. The always-listening nature of Echo Dot, however, has disadvantages including privacy concerns.

This could turn out to be a significant step; Amazon's digital assistant, embodied in the Amazon Echo smart speaker, has proved very popular and companies are now scrambling to build it into devices from washing machines and smart locks to cars.

That's giving Amazon plenty of momentum in the connected home, but the device we carry with us all the time is the smartphone. If consumers warm to the idea of Alexa everywhere, then integrating the service could be a handy boost for companies like Lenovo and Huawei, giving them a leg-up against bigger rivals with more established digital assistants.

If it takes off, or more smartphone makers jump aboard, Alexa could become a big new rival to Apple's Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft's Cortana.

Google Now will still be available on Moto smartphones, which run Android. But companies are now taking sides in the Alexa versus Google Assistant battle. For example, Nvidia has turned to Google Assistant as the voice assistant in its Shield TV boxes, introduced at CES.