February Update: Enhancements in Yandexs Alice and Smart Home Devices

In February, an update was released for Yandex’s voice assistant, Alice, as well as its smart home devices, introducing a smart climate algorithm and new quick commands.

Yandex’s smart home has become more intelligent. The company’s experts have enhanced it to maintain a stable temperature without fluctuations and added the capability to create multiple scenarios. The new «Smart Climate» mode learns and manages devices to keep the temperature consistent. The algorithm analyzes data from temperature sensors and the devices’ behavior—how long it takes for them to heat or cool a room. «Smart Climate» activates the devices in advance to ensure the temperature doesn’t drop below a certain threshold and turns them off in such a way that excess heat does not overheat the room. Consequently, the temperature remains within a comfortable range, avoiding sudden spikes.

Additionally, Yandex’s smart devices now allow users to share pre-set smart home scenarios with friends and family through the mobile app (to share a scenario, just tap «Share» in its settings). A new section called «Event History» lets users view how and when the states of their smart devices and automations changed, as well as what adjustments were made to the home settings.

Updates to Yandex Stations include:

— Alice has learned to respond from just one smart speaker, even if multiple Stations are in the same area linked to different accounts. Now it takes into account all devices within a user’s family group on Yandex ID. As soon as the user says «Alice,» all belonging Stations and TV Stations, even those owned by different family members, communicate with each other, ensuring that only the necessary device activates.

— Users can now enable and disable Bluetooth on all Stations using quick commands without invoking Alice by name (commands like «Turn on Bluetooth» and «Turn off Bluetooth»).

— On the Midi Station, there is a beta option available to «Respond without a name in conversation»: Alice will wait 30 seconds for the next request and will understand by the user’s tone that they are addressing her. «Now, if you want to continue a conversation or issue another command after Alice’s response, you don’t have to call her name again. Alice will listen for the next request for another 30 seconds. The Station will distinguish when it is being spoken to versus when someone is simply talking nearby. This feature is currently in beta mode on the Midi Station due to its neural processor. You can enable the «Respond without a name in conversation» setting in the «Virtual Assistant» section of the Home with Alice app,” explained representatives from Yandex.