Celia is an

artificially intelligent Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animal cognition, animals and human intelligence, humans. Example tasks in ...

virtual assistant An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term "chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtual ...

developed by

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

for their latest

HarmonyOS HarmonyOS (HMOS) () is a distributed operating system developed by Huawei to collaborate and interconnect with multiple smart devices on the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. In its current multi-kernel design, the operating system selects ...

and Android-based

EMUI EMUI (formerly known as Emotion UI, and also known as Magic UI on Honor smartphones since 2019) is an Android-derived mobile operating system developed by Chinese technology company Huawei. It is used on the company's smartphones and tablets. ...

smartphones that lack

Google Services The following is a list of products, services, and apps provided by Google. Active, soon-to-be discontinued, and discontinued products, services, tools, hardware, and other applications are broken out into designated sections. Web-based product ...

and a

Google Assistant Google Assistant is a virtual assistant software application developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and home automation devices. Based on artificial intelligence, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations, unlike t ...

. The assistant can perform day-to-day tasks, which include making a phone call, setting a reminder and checking the weather. It was unveiled on 7 April 2020 and got publicly released on 27 April 2020 via an OTA update solely to selected devices that can update their software to EMUI 10.1. Huawei had initially referred to the new assistant in late 2019 by having announced that there would be an English version of their already Chinese speaker assistant—Xiaoyi—to be released into the European markets. Due to the on-going

China–United States trade war The China–United States trade war () is an ongoing economic conflict between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America. In January 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on Chin ...

, the company's newly released smartphones were left without a virtual assistant. This subsequently led to the development and release of Celia. AI technology is integrated into the software of Celia, which allows it to translate text using a phones camera and to identify everyday objects — similar to that of

Google Lens Google Lens is an image recognition technology developed by Google, designed to bring up relevant information related to objects it identifies using visual analysis based on a neural network. First announced during Google I/O 2017, it was first ...

Features

Celia has many features that are similar to that of its rivals: the

and

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

. It can be triggered by the words, 'Hey Celia' or be summoned by pressing and holding down on the power button. The default search engine for Celia is

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

, but this can be changed in settings. Celia can make calls, check the agenda, send a message, show the weather, set alarms and control home appliances. The assistant also has the ability to integrate itself with the stock apps of the EMUI software and toggle with the device's settings, such as by turning on the flashlight and playing multimedia content, but with the users command. With the AI that is installed in Celia, it can identify food, everyday objects and translate text using the phones camera.

Availability by country and language

Currently, Celia is available only in German, English, French and Spanish, and has been released in Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Chile, Mexico and Colombia. Huawei has said that there will be more regions and languages to come.

Compatible devices

Celia only became available with the EMUI 10.1 update that was released in April, which means that a limited number of devices are compatible with it. More devices will be added to the list throughout the coming months as Celia's availability increases. The current list is shown below:

Huawei P series The Huawei P series (formerly the Ascend P series) is a line of high-end and medium-range Android smartphones produced by Huawei. The P series was formerly marketed as part of Huawei's larger Ascend brand. Some models are called ''P smart''. Und ...

* Huawei P50 (Pro) * Huawei P40 (Lite, Pro & Pro+) * Huawei P30 (Pro)

Huawei Mate series The Huawei Mate series (previously the Huawei Ascend Mate series) is a line of high-end HarmonyOS-powered (formerly Android based) phablet smartphones produced by Huawei, and is one of the flagship smartphones along with the P series. Under the ...

Huawei Mate 40 Huawei Mate 40 , Huawei Mate 40 Pro , Huawei Mate 40 Pro Plus and Huawei Mate 40 RS Porsche Design is a high-end Android and HarmonyOS based phablets developed by Huawei for its Mate series, succeeding the Huawei Mate 30 range. They were rele ...

* Huawei Mate 30 (Lite, Pro & RS Porche Design) *

Huawei MatePad Pro The Huawei MatePad Pro is an Android-based tablet designed and marketed by Huawei as part of their Huawei Mate series. It was announced on November 25, 2019 and was released on December 12, 2019. Specifications Hardware Chipsets The Huawei ...

* Huawei Mate 20 (Pro, 20X 4G, 20X 5G and RS Porche Design) * Huawei Mate X & Xs *

Huawei Nova series

* Huawei Nova 6 (Nova 6 5G & Nova 6 SE) * Huawei Nova 5 (Nova 5 Pro, Nova 5i Pro & Nova 5Z) * Huawei Nova Y60

Huawei Enjoy series

* Huawei Enjoy 10S

Issues

Technology news website ''

Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editori ...

has'' noted that when saying, 'Hey Celia', out aloud in the presence of an iPhone, Siri will respond along with Celia; this is apparently because 'Celia' sounds similar to 'Siri'.

References

External links

* {{URL, https://cosumer.huawei.com/en/emui/celia/ Virtual assistants Huawei products 2020 software