What's New in the Alexa Skills Kit: May 2019 Release Roundup

Leo Ohannesian Jun 14, 2019
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Test Release Roundup News Testing & Certification Advanced SMAPI CLI Spanish
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Editor's Note: Our monthly release roundup series showcases the latest in Alexa Skills Kit developer tools and features that can make your skills easier to manage, simpler to deploy, and more engaging for your customers. Build with these new capabilities to enable your Alexa skills to drive brand or revenue objectives.

In this roundup post we share details about the new things released for skill developers last month, including the release of the Spanish voice model for the US and several other features that can help make you be more productive or build more engaging skills. Check out the entire livestream for more information from Alexa evangelists and code samples.

1. Alexa Skills Kit expands to include Spanish in the US

Now you can create Spanish-speaking skills for US customers with the new Spanish-for-US voice model. Skills that you publish now using the new voice model will be available to customers when Alexa launches with Spanish language support in the US later this year. Check out the announcement here or read about how to update your Alexa skill for US Spanish here.

2. Enhance the smart home camera experience with person detection

You can use the new Alexa.EventDetectionSensor interface in the Smart Home Skill API to tell Alexa when your smart home camera detects the presence of a person. Once you’ve implemented the capability, customers can use person detection as a trigger for other actions, such as turning on the house lights. You can also enable customers to view the last person detected by saying, “Alexa, show the most recent person detected at the front door.” The new capability is available in the US today. Read about it in our docs

3. Quickly test your voice UI with SMAPI quick builds

Save time and start testing early: We are excited to announce the launch of quick builds, which enable you to start testing your skill with sample utterances on average 67% quicker than before. This is done by introducing a new intermediate build state called Quick Build through SMAPI or the ASK CLI. Read about building your model and getting your skill status in our docs. 

4. Simulate a multi-turn conversation with the ASK CLI

Now available: Test multi-turn conversations using the the CLI, SMAPI, or the ASK plugin for Visual Studio Code. Use this new testing capability to improve your skill conversations and deliver a better customer experience. Learn about simulating a multi-turn conversation in our docs. 

 

As always, we can't wait to see what you build. As a reminder, learn how to get the most out of the tech docs by visiting the Latest Tips page.