Amazon Web Services (AWS), on the eve of their IoT day, released multiple updates. One of the key highlights was the announcement of Alexa Voice Service which will be available for anyone to build it into their devices.

Alexa built-in is a low power-consuming chip with 1MB of RAM. This makes integrating a device with Alexa Voice services cheaper and lighter.

AWS, in their blog, listed the following releases as the key ones:

• Secure Tunneling
• Configurable Endpoints 
• Enhanced Custom Authorizers
• Fleet Provisioning
• Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Integration
• Greengrass Containers & Stream Manager

The new releases by AWS are a major boost to the majority of the existing de and also to the newer IoT device manufacturers and users. Around the globe, IoT devices powers many homes, factories, hospitals and cars. 

With the increased usage of smart devices, there has been a sudden rise in the number of IoT solutions offered, to connect multiple devices.

Devices are made smarter as AWS IoT integrates with AI services, even in offline scenarios. Built on AWS, AWS IoT is easily scalable and also offers the most comprehensive security features to respond immediately to potential security issues.

What AWS IoT Has To Offer

In the cloud, AWS IoT claims to be the only vendor to bring together data management and rich analytics in easy to use services designed specifically for noisy IoT data. AWS services extend to various faculties of businesses. From the edge to the cloud, the applications are endless. Here are a few features that put AWS IoT services on the top:

• Device software AWS IoT Greengrass, provides local data collection and analysis. 
• The services also include preventive security mechanisms, such as encryption and access control to device data. 
• With its continuous monitor and audit security configurations, users can receive alerts in case of an alert or if there is a need to push a security fix to a device.
• Models can be built in the cloud, and then deployed to devices at twice the speed.
• Its scalable and secure cloud infrastructure is capable of handling billions of different devices and trillions of messages. 

AWS IoT Day Key Highlights 

• AWS IoT Core now makes it easy to onboard large volumes of manufactured devices at scale
• AWS IoT Core makes it easier to transition from self-managed to fully-managed AWS IoT services with minimal impact to existing application architectures for IoT devices
• New Alexa Voice Service Integration for AWS IoT Core cost-effectively brings Alexa Voice to any type of connected device
• AWS IoT Device Management introduces Secure Tunneling, a new secure way to troubleshoot IoT devices
• AWS IoT Greengrass 1.10 provides support for Docker containers and management of data streams
• AWS IoT Greengrass 1.10 provides support for Docker containers and management of data streams

As mentioned earlier, the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), was one of the major announcements by AWS. Amazon has worked Qualcomm and NXP to develop hardware-based reference solutions that make it easier for device makers to get started with AVS for AWS IoT Core.

The result is that AVS users can run on microcontroller-class processors with <1MB embedded memory, instead of the application-class processors with >50MB memory required for typical AVS Device SDK based integrations. 

AWS IoT Core is a managed cloud service that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. 

In addition, device makers have access to simpler device management, strengthened device security, and rich analytics via easy to use AWS IoT services.

These releases come as a breath of fresh air for Amazon customers as the company, not adhering to their losing of defence contract to Microsoft and other legal battles, have come up with decent updates and democratisation of their technology. So, irrespective of increasing popularity of Amazon’s cloud contemporaries, AWS still stands tall and delivers.