Amazon and Qualcomm are joining forces to bring Alexa headphones to market with the release of a chip that will make it easy for any headphone manufacturer to embed voice-activated Alexa into their products. The Smart Headset Reference Design which the DesignEdge team has helped to develop is the first system reference design qualified by Amazon for Bluetooth headsets and delivers ultra-low-power consumption, extended playback time and includes Qualcomm cVc™ noise reduction technology which supports active noise cancellation and superior audio quality while in a voice call.

“This radically reduces engineering cost and time to market and makes it simple for the industry to adopt this.” Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Voice and Music. The end result is expected to be a flood of Alexa headphones and Bluetooth earbuds to take on Apple’s AirPods, but with Amazon’s Alexa onboard instead of Siri.