The New Trend for This Christmas Season

With flagship smartphones now hitting Php50,000 price range levels, it’s no longer practical to upgrade annually (heck even every 2 years). To feed your tech and gadget fix, we recommend you expand to building a smart ecosystem at home or at your office and it couldn’t more timely. Back in May Google released an SDK allowing third party manufacturers to build Google Assistant into their speakers. Today in IFA we saw 3 smart speakers being sold for competitive prices. Make no mistake, this is the next gadget trend: affordable smart speakers.

For $70 (Php3,500), you can get the brand new Zolo Mojo from Anker. It’s being billed as an “entry-level smart speaker” that has a 5-watt speaker, two microphones, Google Assistant support, Google Cast Audio support, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. What can you do with Google Assistant? Watch the video below.

Anker is just the start. Panasonic also announced their Panasonic SC-GA10 smart speaker. It will be compatible with Spotify and Google Play Music, has Google Assistant support, and all the other stuff that comes with smart speakers. It also comes with a Panasonic Music Control application which allows you to connect two SC-GA10s and listen in Stereo or Party mode.

This is just the start. Imagine once the China brands start building their own and shipping it in volume (or the more popular flagship brands like BOSE).

Make no mistake about it, this is the new hot trend. With rising flagship smartphone prices, going down the ladder to peripherals and accessories to build smart homes is turning out to be a more practical choice.