Back in January, Huawei introduced the Mate 9 in the United States, promising that later this year it would be updated with Amazon's digital voice assistant, Alexa. That OTA update will begin rolling out today.
You'll be able to do everything with your Mate 9 that you can do with an Echo, Echo Dot, Fire TV, Lenovo Smart Assistant, or other Alexa-enabled device - such as control smart home devices and utilize thousands of Skills, such as Jeopardy. You'll also be able to play your Audible audiobooks, podcasts, music, and more.
Once you install the update, you'll find the Huawei Alexa app on your phone, which will allow you to connect to the service. The company says that the Mate 9 has four "strategically places directional mics and noise cancellation technology", making it perfect for voice commands.
When we reviewed the Mate 9 back in February, we were impressed with it, giving it an 8.5 out of 10, citing some camera and video recording issues as the only drawbacks to the device. Presumably, this update will be a staged rollout, so if you don't see it today, be patient.
Update: Huawei reached out to us to let us know that "Timer/Alarms, Music and Tunein (in flash briefing) are not currently available", but the firm is working to bring these features to the device within the next year.
