A unit of Amazon Echo is being used for demonstration at the Boston Children's Hospital. (Photo : Getty Images)
If Amazon has its Amazon Echo, Beijing LingLong Co. has its LingLong DingDong.
The Amazon Echo is a voice-activated speaker, connected to Alexa Voice service, which functions as a digital personal assistant that can play music, help with recipes and order things online.
On the other hand, the LingLong DingDong, a voice-activated, cloud-based smart home speaker, can do all the things that Amazon Echo can do, but aside from that it can speak Chinese, according to an article by wired.com.
Global tech companies such as Amazon and Google want people to use these smart devices when they interface with the Internet, through any product or platform they use. With a simple word or command to these devices, one can set an alarm, get the weather update, make a shopping list, and control the lights and security locks.
Reports said that the smart home market in China is expected to reach $22.8 billion by 2018.
"We think that the voice is most natural way to connect," Charlie Liu, LingLong's senior marketing manager, said. "You just need to say what you want. We think it is really a huge market."
The DingDong is the first product made by Beijing LingLong Co., which is the offshoot of a $25-million joint venture between JD.com and voice recognition powerhouse iFlytek. The device, which costs about $118, can provide information such as news, weather, and stock updates. It can also answer questions, provide directions, manage schedules, and play music and audiobooks.
The device stands about 9.5 inches and weighs 3 pounds and available in red, white, black and purple. It is circular at the top and square at the bottom. According to Liu, the device's shape symbolizes tiānyuán dìfāng, which says that "heaven is round, Earth is square," a concept that is central to LingLong's design language.
The device can be activated by three commands: DingDong DingDong, Xiaowei Xiaowei (a girl's nickname), and BaiLing BaiLing (skylark). The DingDong comes in Mandarin and Cantonese versions. According to the company, the DingDong understands nearly 95 percent of the population.
Liu said that the DingDong is much like the Echo only by design. He said that work on the DingDong was already on-going when the Echo was introduced in 2014.
"Their launch influenced us a lot," Liu said.
"It is a challenge to do on the R&D side," Lv Fang, head of sales and marketing, said.
The DingDong has a library of about 3 million songs, which customers mostly use but the company needs third-party support to change the limited feature setting.
"Echo is really great in this area," Liu said. "We have 10 services like that, but Amazon announced that they have 4,000. It's really a big gap."
The company recently made a voice service platform available to developers to narrow this gap. It is also offering tech support and other incentives to attract them.
Although it can play Chinese music and drama, the DingDong has some few issues. The device gets confused with a request for Beyoncé, when the name is said in English. It also could not supply information about JD.com stocks, since it is listed in NASDAQ and not in China.
To address this, the company will make DingDong smarter by incorporating artificial intelligence. In addition, the company also wants to work with other companies and developers to boost DingDong's skills.
The company said it could work with Amazon to introduce DingDong to Alexa, and vice versa. "If they want to sell the Echo in China, maybe they will use our voice engine," Fang said.
DingDong can also help Amazon enter the Chinese market and someday, even teach Alexa to speak Chinese.
