Amazon announced that customers can select an Irish voice for their Echo devices. The new language option is called “English Ireland (Public Preview)” which is part of the devices settings or the Alexa App:
What does this mean for skill developers?
With the introduction of Alexa’s Irish voice, developers can now create localized Irish experiences for their customers. Developers need to make sure their skill includes “Ireland” among the available countries in the distribution tab, and select the right primary locale for your skill.
We have renamed the “English (UK)” entry to “English (UK/IE)”. The latter is the setting developers have to select in order to take advantage of this experience. The Irish voice runs as an “extension” of en-GB, which also represents the underlying locale when selecting “English (UK/IE)” from the developer console.
Can I, as a developer, know if a customer has enabled the Irish voice, to personalize the experience based on this new setting?
We are currently not exposing this setting at the skills level.
Alexa currently has hundreds of thousands of customers in Ireland, even prior to the more personalised experience. Users can access their favourite radio stations and get the news from Ireland's public service broadcaster RTÉ (“Alexa, open RTÉ Radio One” or “Alexa, open RTÉ News”), manage their travel with Ryanair (“Alexa, ask Ryanair how can I check in”), and much more now using Alexa's new Irish voice and experience.
The feature will enable skill builders to develop experiences catered even more specifically to Irish customers, no matter where they reside in the world. Please visit About Amazon to learn more.
Alexa Innovators: Labrador
Alexa Innovators: Endel
