LINE's cute portable smart speaker

Google Home, Amazon Echo...now, various smart speakers compete ruthlessly. Meanwhile, Japanese messaging application company LINE started selling cute smart speaker "Clova Friends".

Originally they released own smart speaker Clova Wave in October, and it was a simple form. However, Clova Friends is in the form of LINE 's cute official character LINE Friends. They worked as LINE stickers and official goods, and contributed to LINE's popularity in Asian market. Even though they are cute forms, these are not toys for kids.

They have own AI assistant Clova and have the functions of music playing by link with the own music service LINE MUSIC, reading the weather forecast, news, fortune telling, and LINE messages. And in late December, they also support LINE's free voice calling, and will add functions for receiving incoming functions and home appliances compatible with infrared controllers by future updates. In addition, clothes for them will be released next spring, so users can dress them more cute.

Variations are brown bear 'Clova Friends BROWN' and yellow chick 'Clova Friends SALLY', both weights are as light as 378 grams and size are 72x72x170.3mm (BROWN) / 72x72x166mm (SALLY), which are suitable for carrying. They have microphone off, volume control, and Bluetooth pairing buttons on the back, so users can also pair with these and other gadgets. The price is 8,640yen(tax included), and as a campaign plan, a 6,750yen(tax included) course that set with the LINE MUSIC fee for 6 months offered until March 31, 2018.

Beyond languages' barriers

For many Japanese, learning other languages is still a huge barrier. In order to solve it, Logbar developed a speech translation device "ili" that can be used in an offline environment.
They pre-released it by 18,144yen(Including tax) on December 6, and sold out in about one hour. This is a stick type device that translates at the fastest speed of 0.2 seconds and speak digital voice by talking while pushing the button. The big feature of this is that it can be used without an internet connection. It's size is about 33.0 x 121.8 x 13.0 mm, weighs is about 42 grams, and It's small and not bulky when traveling abroad. Support languages are English, Chinese and Japanes.
They have offered this for corporations from June this year, but they will also sell to the general users step by step. The next sale start date is December 22.