Apple’s coveted digital voice assistant, Siri ubiquitously powers iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Macs. Later, when the Cupertino-headquartered colossus introduced the Apple Watch, Siri was integrated at the core of the device to make it seamlessly sync with other Apple devices. However, a new workaround that has freshly cropped up allows using another digital voice assistant on Apple Watch. A third-party app called ‘Voice in a Can’ lets you run Amazon Alexa on Apple Watch.
Voice in a Can is a standalone app that is available on Apple Watch and won’t require tethering from an iPhone, albeit a Wi-Fi or LTE connection is required on the Apple Watch, reports The Verge. Apple imposes a restriction on the use of any other digital assistant other than Siri, however, the Voice in a Can app bypasses this limitation by enabling Alexa within the app and you can even launch the app from the watch face, thanks to the integration of the app with the Apple Watch.
That said, the Echo on Apple Watch won’t offer you full functionalities such as calling, texting, and playing music. However, you can ask Echo to control your smart home devices, such as turning on or dimming the lights or setting a timer on the connected washing machine. But apart from this, there isn’t anything else that Echo can do on the Apple Watch. For the Echo to work in Voice in a Can, the user needs to sign in with the Amazon account, which will sync all the data.
For all it’s worth, the app works fine with the smart home devices, however, the caveats include a sluggish interface and a sketchy Internet connectivity. However, this could still be a respite to the people who have desperately wanted to control their Alexa-powered smart home devices, given there’s no official support from Amazon. The Voice in a Can app costs $1.99 (roughly Rs 135).
