Last year Ultimate Ears announced the launch of the UE Boom and Megaboom speakers. While the company has been putting out portable Bluetooth speakers for a while now, what made this particular launch interesting is the fact that they come with Alexa support, meaning that these speakers are essentially smart speakers.They can be used to control your home, set reminders, request for the news, and more. Unfortunately it seems that Ultimate Ears has decided that maybe Alexa support isn’t so vital anymore and has since removed its functionality via a software update. The company cites how this is part of their move to “enhance the core functionality” of their speakers.
In a statement made to Engadget, the company says, “The new update to the BOOM & MEGABOOM app is focused on enhancing the core functionality of the speakers. As part of that update, the Alexa Tap-to-Talk feature is no longer supported. As we look to provide the best experience across all devices, we are focusing resources on the current app and improving our core, most widely used features.”
That being said, it has been pointed out that this doesn’t come as a surprise as given that these two speakers do not feature internet connectivity and rely on mobile phones to be connected, having Alexa on it isn’t as useful as it could be, versus a set of speakers that can connect to the internet on its own. Note that the removal of Alexa only affects these two devices, and that if you want UE-branded Alexa speakers, there are the Blast and Megablast speakers from the company that could be worth considering.
Filed in . Read more about Alexa, Amazon, Speakers and Ultimate Ears.