Amazon developing Alexa for headphones, smartwatches

In a bid to facilitate the usage of Alexa on headphones and smartwatches for the coming generations, Amazon announced plans to create a "mobile accessory" development kit, which is expected to make it easy for hardware companies to build Alexa into their wearable products with minimum investment in hardware or integration efforts.

The electronic commerce and cloud computing company is designing the kit specifically for lightweight gadgets that don't have a lot of processing power. This toolkit works by sending voice requests back to the Alexa app on iOS or Android, which then processes the request.

While the tool is in the pipeline for release later this year, Amazon is reportedly working with some partners such as Bose, Jabra, and iHome, according to The Verge.

Amazon's Alexa is not the first one to be made available on headphones and wearable devices; Apple's AirPods offer a direct connection to Siri, and Google has begun letting companies build its Assistant directly into headphones as well.