Yandex Station Midi: A compact speaker with powerful sound and new Alice features

Yandex introduced a new speaker with Alice – Midi Station . This is a compact device with powerful surround sound, new Alice capabilities and a neural processor that speeds up the response to voice commands. And for Zigbee-enabled devices, voice commands work even without the Internet.

Thanks to the neural processor, Midi Station processes requests faster and more accurately. As a result, Alice responds better to commands and recognizes people by voice. She also learned how to control Zigbee-enabled devices without the Internet. For example, if the Internet goes out, you can still turn on the lights or make them brighter with your voice. A powerful processor allows the speaker to process voice commands locally without sending them to the cloud. And the built-in Zigbee module makes it possible to interact with Zigbee devices directly.

In Midi Station, Alice can trigger smart home scenarios when she hears human speech. For example, you can set a scenario so that in the morning Alice herself turns on the kettle and music as soon as she hears voices. This became possible thanks to the introduction of a speech activity detector (VAD). You can enable the function and set up scenarios in the “Home with Alice” application.

The new speaker sounds clear and powerful despite its compact size. It has three speakers with a total power of 24 W – such a speaker can be placed in both the bedroom and the living room. A woofer was developed especially for Midi, which is responsible for deep bass. It is supported by two high-frequency speakers, and Room correction technology adapts the sound to the acoustics of the room.

Station Midi is equipped with a display, LED backlighting and has a compact body that follows the outline of Station 2. The display shows the time and weather outside the window, complementing the forecast with a warm or cold glow of circular LED backlighting. It also reflects Alice's emotions and reactions – users from any part of the room will see that she heard the request.

Here is a cat and Yandex Station Midi. Nice 🙂