So What Exactly is a Smart Speaker?

So what exactly is a smart speaker? I love this quote from Kashia Kabir from WhatHiFi: "Basically, if you can shout commands at your wireless speaker to make it do things, it's a smart speaker."  That's the fun definition. A more practical definition might be this: A smart speaker is a stand-alone speaker that responds to voice commands.

But what is often meant by the term "Smart Speaker" is actually the voice technology that the smart speaker uses. So, let's define voice technology. The term voice technology usually refers to the ability of a computer to use speech recognition and turn it into something to act on.   Chip, the technologist for Create My Voice, says it this way: Voice technology is turning what you SAY into what you MEAN. I usually laugh at that. Of course what I say is what I mean! But a computer doesn't see it that way. If I ask a smart speaker to play music, I want to hear music. But for the smart speaker to play music, it needs specific instructions like these:

1. Connect with whatever music platform I've chosen.

2. Get the feed.

3. Play it on its speaker.

and.

4. Don't turn off until another command comes in.

You can probably see where the technology comes in. My words have to be turned into specific commands.

So, now my definition might be: A smart speaker is any stand-alone speaker that uses voice technology. And that's probably a pretty good definition.