In a just-announced collaboration with Amazon, Denon aims to bring Alexa voice control to the Denon HEOS wireless, multi-room audio platform. The hands-free voice service from Amazon is modeled after the supercomputer in Star Trek, and it specializes in far-field voice recognition.
Denon HEOS, soon to be controllable with Amazon Alexa.
Commenting on this latest development, Brendon Stead, SVP product development at Devon,  stated that the company "Has a 100-year history of performance, innovation and design, we have always been driven to provide the best audio experience to our customers—and we’re doing that with Amazon Alexa. We see the recent shift towards voice as the preferred interface for searching, retrieving, and controlling music as a compelling arena, where we can focus that heritage of technical excellence and innovation to deliver completely new experiences."

With Alexa in control, users won't need to find their smart phone or tablet in order to request their favorite tunes, or even get answers to search queries and control connected smart home devices. This capability will be implemented in all HEOS devices sometime during the first quarter of 2017.

Steve Rabuchin, VP, Amazon Alexa said "Amazon shares with Denon a passion for innovation and design. We are excited to collaborate with them to bring hands-free voice control to premium audio products early next year. Soon HEOS and Amazon Alexa customers will be able to enjoy the convenience of the Alexa voice service plus high-quality home audio."

It's a brave new world, folks. We're not too far away from being able to say "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot. Plus some Beethoven please," and have a digital genie named Alexa make it so.