All products featured are independently chosen by us. However, SoundGuys may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links. See our ethics statement.
More details on the Harman Kardon Cortana-powered speaker surface
In December, Microsoft confirmed that Harman Kardon had plans to release a connected speaker that would support the company’s Cortana digital assistant. Now we have some more information on that speaker, which comes from a recent update to the Cortana app for Android.
As reported by MSPowerUser, a look at the app’s user interface shows a drawing of the Harman Kardon speaker, which will apparently be called the Invoke when it is released. The UI also shows that the speaker will be able to connect directly to several popular music streaming services. They include Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn and Microsoft’s own Groove Music service.
So far, neither Microsoft nor Harman Kardon have revealed much in the way of details for the Invoke speaker, other than a brief teaser video several months ago. However, Microsoft is rumored to offer more information on the Invoke as part of its 2017 Build developers conference, which will be held from May 10-12 in Seattle, Washington. If that’s true, hopefully we will get more details on its features, as well as a release date and price tag, during that event.
In the meantime, do you think a connected speaker with Cortana support will be able to compete with other products like the Amazon Echo family and Google Home? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!