I made a pluggable Django app that allows you to talk to Alexa through your browser:

1. Add ​​​​​alexa_browser_client to your INSTALLED_APPS
2. Run the Django app ./manage.py runserver
3. Go to http://localhost:8000/alexa-browser-client/
4. Say something interesting to Alexa e.g., “Alexa, What time is it?”

And hear Alexa’s answer through your browser,

Buy why?

1. It’s like the Amazon Echo, but web developers can build a rich web app around it – and that web app can be used on your Desktop, Tablet, Smartphone, or Smart Watch.
2. You can change the wakeword to anything you want. e.g., “Jarvis“.
3. You can be 100% certain that Amazon, CIA, or “Russian Hackers” are not always listening: the Alexa code does not fire up until the “Alexa” wakeword is issued.
4. Voice control is an important technology, and will only become more relevant. 11 Million households now have an Alexa device, 40% of adults now use voice search once per day, Cortana now has 133 million monthly users. If you’ve not started yet, it’s worth getting into voice technology to stay relevant.

So Alexa Browser App is a tool for developers to build voice commands into their web apps. The only limit is yourself.

Next Steps

I will be using Alexa Browser Client to build a rich web app for controlling my smart home devices. I will put cheap Android tablets in each room, and the web-app will be loaded on each tablet.

Has someone knocked on the door? “Alexa, ask the house to video chat with the front door”

Want to view your Google Calendar? “Alexa, ask the house to show my calendar”.

Want to view the traffic situation in Google Maps? “Alexa, ask the house to show my commute”.

80% of being married is shouting “What did you say?” to your spouse in another room. No more: “Alexa, ask to the house to video chat with the kitchen”.

Note in the above examples you would need to create a custom Alexa Skill that reacts to “the house” and routes the command to your smart home controller app.

Contribute

Alexa Browser Client has great test coverage, highest Codeclimate score, and Gemnasium integration – but the library does not yet support all the Alexa Voice Service features. Feel free to make a Pull Request to add features. As a community, we can make a fully-featured customizable open-source Echo alternative in the browser.