How is Microsoft’s Cortana on the Harman Kardon Invoke Speaker?

Ask @WinObs: How is Microsoft’s Cortana on the Harman Kardon Invoke Speaker?

Q. I’m thinking about a smart speaker for my house? Does the Harman Kardon Invoke make sense if I have a Windows 10 machine?

A. Well, let’s see how it fits into the overall smart speaker picture first.

The Invoke is the first smart speaker to include Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant, and retails for about $200 at places like the Microsoft Store and Harman Kardon’s website.

This speaker is an entry into the same market occupied by Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. Amazon already has a significant lead in this area with a reported 70% of the market share and a library of over 20,000 skills for users’ benefit. In comparison, Cortana’s Skill Library lists approximately 220 skills. Not helping: many of them appear to be low quality and Microsoft is listing standard Cortana skills you can already access  within Cortana on any device that you have the assistant installed.

So if you’re thinking, “The Invoke can go toe-to-toe with Amazon’s Echo,” we’re not quite there yet.

The August announcement of a partnership between Amazon and Microsoft to bring their two digital assistants together now makes a lot of sense – especially for Microsoft – as it will ultimately give Cortana access to that huge library of Alexa skills. While it seems this deal heavily favors Microsoft and its lack of skills, keep in mind that Alexa needs third party tools to access email and calendaring features for Outlook.com and Office 365 accounts. This partnership makes that a first party experience since Cortana is already able to interface to those accounts.

Harman Kardon Invoke in Graphite and Pearl Silver (Image Credit: Harman Kardon)

Although Invoke only just arrived in retail channels, it has been in a private beta test under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) since earlier this year and I had the opportunity to join that program in late July. We have recently been giving permission to talk publicly about our current experience using the Invoke However, we are still under NDA concerning the testing/development process in the past and the future.

With all that said, I want to share my impressions of the Invoke and how I use it daily to introduce you to the device and its capabilities. Then you can decide for yourself whether it makes sense for you.

All About the Hardware

If you are at all familiar with the Harman Kardon brand you know they build great hardware. The Invoke is no exception. It looks good in most any home decor, and between the Graphite and Pearl White options you can select a color option that blends into your space. The test device I received was the graphite model. It sits in my home office where I work everyday.

It has Wi-Fi built in on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz channels for connectivity and can also be paired via Bluetooth 4.1 with compatible devices.

The top of Invoke is a capacitive touch control that you can use to stop or cancel the current activity and this is also where the device lights up to indicate if Cortana is listening and to show the volume level.

Speaking of volume, a ring around the top of the device surrounds this capacitive control surface and you can use it to raise and lower the sound level. Of course, you can also ask Cortana by voice to raise or lower the volume.

Invoke Manual Volume Control Ring (Image Credit: Harman Kardon)

There are seven far-field microphones in the device that provides 360 degree coverage so it can pick up your voice commands from any angle and from across the room.

The 2.3 pound Invoke includes two passive radiators, three direct-radiating speakers, and three direct-radiating woofers. They produce 40 watts of tremendous sound for a device that is just 4.2 inches wide at the base and 9.5 inches tall.

Now, About the Software/Setup

When you unbox the Invoke and plug it in, Cortana will talk you through the setup process to get connected to Wi-Fi and link the device to your Microsoft Account. You can do this using Cortana on any Windows 10 device or via the Android or iOS version of the Cortana app from their respective app stores.

I have done the setup process multiple times and it has taken less than 10 minutes each time. Believe me — Cortana takes care of it.

Once you have this done and connected to your Microsoft Account you now have access to most everything Cortana can do on other devices based on the permissions you have previously granted her. These permissions are contained in Cortana’s Notebook.

Beyond that there are some very basic settings available in the Cortana app where you can name the device, select your preferred music service, and provide feedback. Currently the only music options are Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn.

Invoke Settings in the Cortana App

Functionality and Use

As I mentioned earlier, I have been using the Invoke since late July and while I occasionally used Cortana through Windows 10 or the app on my Samsung Galaxy S8 I have steadily ramped up my interaction with Cortana through the speaker.

Some of the things I now do routinely via Cortana on the Invoke include:

• Reminders: “Hey Cortana, set a reminder that I have a phone call at 2 PM”
• Meetings: “Hey Cortana, put a meeting on my calendar with David at 2 PM”
• Hands Free Calling; “Hey Cortana, dial XXX XXX-XXXX”
• Skype Calls: “Hey Cortana, call Joe Smith”
• Lists: “Hey Cortana, create a shopping list” or “Hey Cortana, add eggs to my shopping list”
• News: “Hey Cortana, what are the latest headlines?”
• Weather: “Hey Cortana, what is the weather like tomorrow?”
• Connected Home: “Hey Cortana, turn on my Studio Light”
• Info: “Hey Cortana, when do the clocks fall back?”
• Music: “Hey Cortana, play my Jams playlist”

Just like the limited list of just three music services that are available on Invoke, there are just five options for Connected Home including:

• Wink
• Insteon (what I use for some lighting control)
• Nest
• SmartThings/Samsung Connect
• Philips Hue (no Group or Scene support yet)

Hopefully, these will start to grow and there should also be a bump in options once the Alexa/Cortana partnership is implemented.

One last thing about connecting to the Invoke speaker: Let’s talk music.

As many of you may already know, Microsoft announced a few weeks ago that they would discontinue their Groove Music Pass service. At that time, they announced a partnership with Spotify to facilitate moving Groove playlists and purchases to Spotify. I made this move shortly after the announcement and it allowed me to test the new setup on Invoke without any issues. When you select your preferred music provider, you do not need to specific the music service in your request to Cortana  — that’s convenient.

Since the Invoke is a Wi-Fi speaker it can also be a device target in Spotify to stream music to the speaker remotely.

Streaming from Spotify on Windows 10 to Invoke via Wi-Fi

This is a functionality that didn’t exists in Groove Music so I am pretty pleased to not only add Invoke as a streaming target but to also see my existing Samsung M7 Wireless Audio speakers.

So What Do I Recommend?

I have really enjoyed using Invoke and it’s made it a lot more convenient for me to use Cortana regularly. Although I could have been speaking to Cortana through my collection of Windows 10 devices, I have always kept that feature turned off because all the devices would try to respond to a spoken Cortana command. Now I have one centralized portal to interact with Cortana, thus eliminating the “everything talks back at once” issue, and that has resulted in more interactions. And just because the remainder of my devices are silent does not mean that the information I enter doesn’t get synched up. Because I have Cortana across all of my devices, I can keep my information coordinated and synched. Since the Invoke entered my house, the Amazon Echo Dot I have in my home office remains muted most of the time except for package delivery alerts.

At a price tag of around $200, many will hesitate about this purchase. Many sound aficionados would not hesitate to buy a similar piece of hardware at this pricing, but I think the limited Cortana Skills options might be a detractor for some. At this point I would remind you that the skills world for Cortana is going to expand significantly soon when Alexa and Cortana become good friends and share capabilities across their skills libraries.

If you like good sound, well built hardware, and the prospect of increasing your interactions with Cortana then the Harman Kardon Invoke might be a great option right now.

How to Use Track Changes in Microsoft Word

Track Changes can help you modify a document while preserving the original.

Maybe you’ve played around with Track Changes in Microsoft Word but bumped into difficulty with it. Or perhaps you’ve never used the feature but could benefit from it. Either way, you can tap into Track Changes to keep track of any modifications in your documents, whether you’re working on them by yourself or collaborating on them with other people. The feature comes in handy if you want to edit a document without losing the initial version of it. But sometimes Track Changes can be confusing. The trick is to enable Track Changes at the right time and then bounce back and forth between your original and revised document. You can also tweak what you see and what you don’t see when you enable Track Changes. How can you benefit from Track Changes in Word?

I’m using Word 2016 on my end, but the process is the same for any of the past few versions of the program. Launch Word and open a document you want to revise. Click on the Review menu to display the Review ribbon. From there, either click on the top half of the Track Changes button or click on the bottom half and then click on Track Changes. Word will now highlight any changes you make to the document.

Now, make a change to your document, such as deleting some text. Notice that the original text isn’t remove but merely crossed out. If you want to see the actual change, meaning the removal of the text, hover over the gray vertical bar in the left margin and click on the popup command to Hide Tracked Changes. The deleted text disappears.

To see the tracked changes, hover over the now red vertical bar and click on the popup command to Show Tracked Changes. Hover over the crossed-out text. A popup message displays your name as the person who made the change, when the change was made, what type of change it was, and what text was affected.

Now make another change in the document, such as adding text. Notice that the added text appears in and is underlined in red. Hover over the added text to see the details on the change.

Again, you can hover over the vertical bar in the left margin and click on Hide Tracked Changes to hide all tracked changes throughout your document. Click on Show Tracked Changes to display the changes again. Make further changes to your document by deleting and adding text. You can make changes in formatting and layout, and those are tracked and displayed as well. Modify the formatting for some bits of text to see the change displayed. A formatting change is marked by a red horizontal line as well as a comment in the right margin. You can see the details on a formatting change by hovering over the modified text or reading the comment.

You can add your own comment to a particular change if you want to remind yourself or tell someone who will review the document why you made the change. Right-click on the modified text and click on Insert Comment from the popup menu, or click on the New Comment button on the Review ribbon. A text box appears. Type your comment in the box and then click anywhere in the document to exit the comment box. You’ll notice the box stays visible as you continue to modify the document.

You can also write your comment either using a mouse or more easily using your finger or a stylus on a touchscreen device. Click on the modified text and then click on the Ink Comment button on the Review ribbon. A text box pops up where you can write your comment. Click anywhere in the document to exit the comment, which stays visible.

You can cycle through your comments. On the ribbon, click on the Next button to move to the next comment in your document and the Previous button to jump to the previous comment. To remove a comment, make sure it’s selected and then click on the Delete button on the ribbon.

You can view your document in different stages of the changes. By default, your document shows all markups when Track Changes is enable. But all the red marks and comments can make your document difficult to read. Let’s fix that. Click on the entry that says All Markup in the dropdown menu on the Review ribbon. Change the selection to Simple Markup, and all the red highlights vanish, so you can read the changed text more cleanly. You still see the vertical red bars on the left and you can click on a comment to view it.

Change the selection to No Markup. Now the document appears in its cleanest form with all the changes and no red markings or access to the comments. Finally, change the selection to Original, and your document reverts to its initial state with none of the changes visible. Change the selection back to All Markup.

Next, click on the Show Markup button on the ribbon. Here, you can hide or display comments, ink, insertions and deletions, and formatting. Hiding certain elements makes the document easier to read. Hover over the Balloons entry in the Show Markup menu. Change the selection to Show Revisions in Balloons to clean up the look of the text and display revisions in the right margin or Show All Revisions Inline to remove the text in the right margin and see all changes in the text.

You can also more easily see and review all changes by turning on the Reviewing Pane. Click on the dropdown arrow for Reviewing Pane on the ribbon and chose to display it either vertically or horizontally. The pane pops up so you can read each change organized in a list.

Okay, now it’s time to send the document to someone else to review and approve your changes, perhaps an editor, co-worker, friend, or spouse. You can send the person the document by email or share it via a service such as OneDrive. When that person opens your document, Track Changes is automatically enabled. Now he or she can review the document, making more changes. The changes that person makes take on a different color than yours. Hovering over a change displays the person’s name and other details. The reviewer can also add comments as well as reply to your comments by clicking on a specific one. If the person agrees with one of your commented changes, he or she can click on Resolve to notify you when you review the document.

Okay, now it’s time for that person to review your tracked changes and either accept or reject them, one at a time or as a whole. To do this, move to the top of the document and click on the first change. Notice that the ribbon offers two buttons: Accept and Reject. Click on the Accept button, and several options are available. The reviewer can accept this change and move to the next one, accept the change and stay put, accept all changes, or accept all changes and stop tracking. Click on the Reject button, and similar options are offered but with the twist that each change or all changes are rejected.

After your reviewer has gone through the entire document, making his or her own changes and accepting or rejecting yours, you may want to review the document. Open the document and you can now see his or her comments and responses to your changes. You can review any changes he or she made.

Hopefully, the document doesn’t have to bounce back and forth between the two of you too many times. But if so, Track Changes should make it easier to decide the ultimate fate and final version of your document.