It’s been the battle of the digital assistants at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, with Alexa and Google Assistant dominating the event.

Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa was the big hit at last year’s event, but this year it had competition from Google LLC The tech giant doesn’t normally make an appearance at CES, but with Google’s branded monorail, 15-foot-tall gumball machine and two-story slide, it definitely made an impression this year.

It’s not only at CES where digital assistants have dominated. They’re also expected to take over our homes. More than 5 billion consumer devices supporting digital assistants will be in use in 2018, according to IHS Markit Ltd., with almost 3 billion more added by 2021. This year, the company predicts, 39 million smart speakers will be shipped globally, up from 27 million last year.

“The smart speaker surge is only just beginning,” said Paul Erickson, senior analyst at IHS Markit. “2018 is the year competition in this market truly begins – and the year true mainstream adoption accelerates. We expect numerous third-party smart speakers built around one or more digital assistants, so consumers will have more choices, when it comes to price, form factors, style and audio quality.”

One of Google’s biggest announcements was the introduction of its partnership with various manufacturers to create smart display speakers. Instead of creating its own smart speaker with a display to rival the Echo Show, Google has partnered with JBL Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., LG Corp. and Sony Corp. These companies will each create their own Echo Show-like smart speaker, but instead of Alexa these speakers will be integrated with Google Assistant.

This week Lenovo unveiled the Lenovo Smart Display, which comes with an eight- or 10-inch display, 10-watt speakers, a 5-megapixel camera and Qualcomm Inc. processors.

LG and JBL also unveiled its Smart Display speakers at the tech show, which like the Lenovo Smart Display will be available in the summer. While pricing hasn’t been announced yet, with the Echo Show priced at $230 and the Lenovo speaker at $200 and $250 depending on screen size, similar pricing is expected from LG and JBL.

LG ThinQ WK9

Along with its ThinQ Speaker with Google Assistant integration, which the company announced ahead of CES, LG also unveiled the WK9 (above).

The company hasn’t announced many details about the LG ThinQ WK9, but the device does come with an 8-inch touchscreen display and has Google Assistant and Chromecast built-in.

Compared with the Lenovo Smart Display and JBL Link View, the WK9 has a more traditional speaker box design. It includes Meridian Audio Ltd. speaker technology for sound and it’s built on a Qualcomm Home Hub Platform.

According to Qualcomm, this is a more powerful version of its platform and offers Full HD+ display, captures 4K video and supports TensorFlow for on-device machine learning.

The smart display speaker also includes LG ThinQ connectivity and artificial intelligence, which will allow it to communicate with other home electronics devices from the company and other third-party products.

Like Lenovo’s device, the LG WK9 includes a physical switch to turn its camera off.

JBL Link View

The JBL Link View with Google Assistant, via JBL

The oval-shaped JBL Link View, announced earlier this week, incorporates an eight-inch touchscreen display, a 5MP camera, two 10-watt stereo speakers and a rear-facing passive radiator that will reportedly provide “rich, deep bass.”

In addition to Google Assistant, the Link View has Chromecast support, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and will stream audio at 24bit/96K. Unlike the smart speakers from Lenovo and LG, the JBL Link View also comes with IPX4 splash-proof protection.

Like the other Google Assistant-enabled speakers, you will be able to use the Link View to control connected devices, add events to calendars, search the web, stream music and more. The eight-inch screen can be used for video calls, watching videos or displaying additional information such as maps or recipes.

Unlike the Lenovo Smart Display, which is available in gray for the eight-inch and bamboo for the 10-inch, the Link seems to be available only in black for now.

Main image: LG