No, Microsoft is not removing Cortana from Invoke, but there were some issues

Invoke Speaker Source: Windows Central

Update v:56PM ET: Microsoft has responded to the issue. "In that location was a small-scale outage that impacted the Invoke in certain regions of the U.s.a., but the result has been resolved."

Over the weekend, the few users left of Harman Kardon Invoke speaker featuring Microsoft's Cortana assistant began to have bug. Many took to Twitter to mutter that the speaker simply stopped responding to commands leading many to fright Microsoft was pulling the plug.

Is there any truth to it, or should we chalk this up to some misreporting? Let's notice out.

What'south going on?

Users began to complain over the terminal few days that the Invoke would no longer obey commands often with Cortana, stating she "can't practise that correct now." Such functions equally timers, reminders, controlling smart appliances, and even playing music were affected:

Hey @Daniel_Rubino, do you have any info on Cortana's skills no longer working in the US? She can't control lights or play music anymore on my Invoke or Android app.
— Rick Narvaez (@ICEDLATTEGUY) Dec 15, 2022

The experience seemed more of an outage rather than a removing of features, but the experience is terrible, nonetheless.

Is it yet happening?

Harmon Kardon Invoke with Cortana Source: Windows Central

For this article, we pulled out one of a few Invoke speakers and hard reset it. We then walked through the setup process using an iPhone and the Cortana app. The Invoke had no trouble setting upward and registering with our Microsoft Account.

After the setup, we tried the following:

Play Spotify
Call up Amazon Alexa
Go the atmospheric condition
Prepare a timer
Turn on and off our Xbox
Plough off our (Hues) office lights
Decline the temperature (Ecobee)
Get calendar appointments
Bank check for new email
Read back electronic mail
Random trivia
Basic math problems
Tell a joke

All these features are working on our speaker implying that what happened over the weekend was more of an outage and not a policy alter.

We are using the Invoke in the United states and can't business relationship for regional issues, nor take nosotros done exhaustive testing of every command, so your mileage may vary.

However, not everything was perfect in our testing. For case, Cortana could not set the specific temperature to our Ecobee thermostat, east.g., "Hey Cortana, prepare the temperature to ." But we could say, "Hey Cortana, arrive warmer in here," and the speaker would enhance the Ecobee by 2 degrees as expected. Nosotros also had some issues in setting up Cortana from our PC, which seemed related to our Wi-Fi and network.

Cortana says merely a service outage?

Invoke Speaker with Cortana Source: Windows Fundamental

While Microsoft does accept a history of removing features from older products – particularly killing off Ballmer-era projects – the company is normally forthright when they do decide to terminate support. More than ofttimes than not, Microsoft is keen on giving a firm date (come across Windows Phone, Groove Music, and Windows 7). Nonetheless, no such pronouncements were made regarding the Invoke speaker.

Indeed, dorsum in November nosotros asked Andrew Shuman, Corporate Vice President of Cortana, about Invoke and were told on the record that support would proceed. While no new features may exist added, we were led to believe that those who use the Invoke today should be able to go on to exercise so for the foreseeable future (Shuman noted his daughter was a big user of the Invoke).

What happened this weekend seems more than related to the continued backend work Microsoft is doing retooling Cortana as an Office assistant for paying Microsoft 365 customers. Cortana on the current Windows Insider Fast Ring (20H1, 190xx) take seen many bones Cortana features put on concur, eastward.g., solving unproblematic math problems, telling a joke, or answering basic trivia - all of which are withal working on our Invoke. Just some of that effort may take bled over to Cortana on the Invoke resulting in this weekend's feature outage.

Of course, the remaining Invoke users may want to consider moving away from Cortana in the future as competing products from Amazon and Google continue to accelerate in usefulness and features.

~~We accept reached out to Microsoft for more clarification regarding Cortana on the Invoke and will update this article if we hear back.~~ Microsoft has responded: "There was a small outage that impacted the Invoke in certain regions of the US, merely the issue has been resolved."

For now, it is condom to disregard some of the more than speculative and hyperbolic articles reporting that Microsoft has "removed" Cortana. Some elementary testing would have demonstrated otherwise.

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