Switch Cortana based smart speaker ‘s assistant to Amazon Alexa

Nick Lukuei Chang
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

If you purchased the $99USD Harman Kardon Invoka like me, you might met the same problem- nice design, good sound quality but the voice assistant function is not as rich as Amazon Alexa, but what’s good is Microsoft and Amazon announce Cortana and Alexa can “call” each other’s skill.

My Invoka — a bit dirty I know :(

What should we prepare?

Make sure you have below items ready.

  1. Get your Microsoft Cortana ready smart speaker ready, I am using Herman Kardon Invoka.
  2. Install Microsoft Cortana app on your smart device, sign in and make sure the app found your smart speaker under menu->device->your speaker
  3. Alexa account
  4. Make sure all those devices connected to same Wi-Fi network

Enable Alexa skill

You can try bring up Alexa by using below voice command.

“Hey Cortana, open Alexa”

But unless you setup the skill, your Cortana will feedback you that the command is not able to complete unless you setup on application.

Open Cortana application on your mobile device, check the conversation, you should see something like below.

The conversation that “should” occur on your Cortana application

Then click the conversation (you can also use “Enable skill”, the different approach but same result), you will see below dialog box asking for permission and confirm enable this skill.

The permission and confirm dialog box on Cortana application

Once you accept, you can start to use “Hey Cortana, open Alexa” to talk with Alexa.

How to switch between Cortana and Alexa?

On Cortana enable smart speaker, you can use magic word “Hey Cortana” to switch back.

Just a reminder, not all Alexa skill can use on Cortana device, can check more on Google search or this Microsoft blog.

How does it “sounds” like?

Here is the example on YouTube, you should get similar result if you process those steps right.

Nick Lukuei Chang

Written by

Coding everyday interaction design you use today愛聊天, 也愛規劃設計coding跟聊天有關的所有事情. Ohne Heute gäbe es morgen kein Gestern / 如果沒有今天, 明天會不會有昨天? -Yves Bossart

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