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Home furnishings

Duxiana crafts ultimate luxury bedtime experience with Alexa

January 8, 2019

Duxiana integrates Alexa into the bedroom. Image credit: Dux

 

Luxury bed designer Duxiana is bringing voice control into the bedroom, revealing an innovative product that exhibits just how prolific voice-activated speakers have become.

Alexa will now become a part of affluent consumers’ sleep cycles with a new bed from Dux and audio technology provider Stellé. Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2019 in Las Vegas on Jan. 7, Dux has designed a bed with Alexa integration with the hope of making technology a sleep aid rather than a distraction.

“Many companies are entering the sleep tech realm, but we haven’t seen anybody actually using tech to turn the bed into a control center to effectively create the ideal bedtime experience,” said Ed Curry, president of DUX North America. “It’s a marriage of the old-world craftsmanship of the bed itself with leading edge technology.”

Bedtime voice control
Dux has created a bed for consumers to control their homes without having to lift a finger for the ultimate luxury.

A technology module is hidden in the underside of the bed for a sleek design and to avoid any unwanted bulky visuals.

Dux's Alexa-enabled module. Image credit: Dux

By using voice technology, consumers will be able to focus more on getting a restful sleep and avoiding looking at screens, which emit blue lights that can cause trouble sleeping. Blue light triggers the brain to be alert, as this signifies it is daylight.

This can cause unwanted problems at night. As consumers operate their smartphones and devices before falling asleep, their brains are stimulated to stay alert.

Dux’s new bed will allow owners to control the temperature and the lights in their homes if set up to do so, as well as tap into other features such as guided meditation before falling asleep.

The bedmaker has built a complementary application for greater control. Users can create various routines such as morning and bedtime, through which they can preset connected devices such as the lights, thermostat, blinds, Roomba vacuum, air purifiers and even door locks.

Users can also play music through the bed or other Bluetooth-enabled device.

The bed, which retails for $4,950, will be available online starting in May 2019 in a variety of sizes such as California king, king and queen.

A variety of IoT devices are enabled with the Dux bed. Image credit: Dux

Dux’s Alexa integration exhibits just how powerful voice assistants have become, with luxury manufacturers of all sectors tapping into the technology.

Voice assistance

With the growth of digital assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Google Home expecting to reach more than 1.8 billion consumers by 2021, the luxury landscape is open for a multitude of capabilities by integrating with this technology, illustrated in a report from iProspect and Bing.

High-end automakers as well as numerous other luxury brands have been continuing to integrate with digital assistants as the experience exudes opulence, catering to affluent consumers. According to Digital Assistants: Reordering Consumer Lives & Redefining Digital Marketing, currently more than 500 million individuals use some version of a digital assistant, which makes it imperative for luxury brands to stay ahead of the curve now that it has become universal for consumers across the board, and not just the affluent (see story).

As consumers increasingly use virtual voice assistants such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home for shopping, a report indicates brand visibility and loyalty are at risk.

A survey from Digitas found that 85 percent of consumers have purchased the first product result offered by one of these devices, which in many cases is not from the brand they originally searched for. Millennials, who will make up half of the luxury market in a matter of years, show an even greater tendency towards settling for a device's pick (see story).

“This launch represents DUX’s first foray into tech, which some may find surprising coming from a nearly 100-year-old company that has been known for craftsmanship and sleep science,” Mr. Curry said.