Universal Electronics and Microsoft Collaborate on a Turnkey Digital Assistant Platform for Smart Home Hub

UEI’s Nevo® Butler turnkey smart home hub with built-in digital
assistant to be launched at 2019 International Consumer Electronics Show
highlighting the new smart home experiences

SANTA ANA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Universal
Electronics Inc. (UEI) (NASDAQ: UEIC), the worldwide leader in
universal control and sensing technologies for the smart home, today
announced a collaboration with Microsoft to launch a new digital
assistant platform for the home built on the Microsoft Azure cloud
platform using AI and IoT services.

Artificial intelligence is now playing a key role in improving access to
smart living products and services, and this is only expected to expand
in size and scope. Digital assistants that connect consumers to
important services such as safety and security, collaboration and
scheduling or bring joy through better interaction with entertainment
devices, will play a key role in delivering the experiences promised by
a brand.

In order to empower brands to deliver these experiences quickly,
efficiently, and directly to consumers, Universal Electronics and
Microsoft have collaborated to offer a white-label smart home hub
platform, Nevo® Butler, with an integrated digital assistant, as well as
a range of turnkey kits addressing home safety and security, energy
management, and entertainment control, in residential or hospitality
domains.

Nevo Butler is an end-to-end voice-enabled smart home hub with nevo.ai
integrated and built on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform leveraging
Azure IoT and AI services, including Microsoft’s virtual assistant
solution with Azure Bot Service and Azure Cognitive Services. Nevo.ai is
a white-label digital assistant that promises to unify the entertainment
control and home automation experiences, enabling interoperability
across fragmented ecosystems. Built-in entertainment control
capabilities and smart home hub features powered by QuickSet®
Cloud make this device one of the most versatile assistants for the
home, capable of addressing a wide range of devices and use cases from
enabling voice on existing devices, to innovative new services in the
smart home. With a customizable digital assistant experience, enterprise
integration services, and an expanding ecosystem of add-on services,
this platform allows service providers and consumer electronics brands
to offer voice-enabled services to consumers while remaining in control
of the consumer relationship.

QuickSet Cloud, running on the Azure IoT platform, is already powering
millions of connected devices in the home through customers including
Comcast, Sony, LGI, Samsung and others, and will benefit from the
global-scale and security of Azure. The nevo.ai digital assistant
development is accelerated by the Azure virtual
assistant solution where complex and evolving features can be
delivered through a simple natural language interface, making these
experiences accessible to a wide range of audiences.

“With Nevo Butler, we are democratizing access to an essential
technology where consumer’s brands and service providers can quickly and
efficiently deliver new services across many categories. Our sensors and
hubs are pre-integrated with a configurable digital assistant where
these brands can remain in charge of the relationship with the end
consumer,” says Arsham Hatambeiki, SVP Product and Technology for
Universal Electronics Inc. “Microsoft has proven to be a reliable and
innovative partner in delivering this flexibility to brands, and choice
to consumers.”

“Today and in the future, we assume every home product experience will
become frictionless, controlled naturally through conversation and
voice, in a personalized and trusted experience,” said Lili Cheng, CVP,
Conversational AI. “By partnering with UEI on Nevo Butler and Quickset
Cloud, we will enable UEI customers to create custom Virtual Assistant
solutions, for millions of home products, powered by Microsoft’s AI and
Azure IoT services.”

Universal Electronics will host product demonstrations for their new
platform, Nevo Butler, at booth #42325, in the Sands Expo at CES 2019 in
Las Vegas from January 8-11.

About Universal Electronics

Universal Electronics Inc. (NASDAQ:UEIC) is the worldwide leader in
universal control and sensing technologies for the smart home. Its broad
portfolio of patents includes QuickSet® Cloud service that utilizes the
world’s most complete knowledge graph of devices to detect and interact
with thousands of entertainment and smart home devices. The company
designs, develops, and manufactures innovative products that are used by
the world’s leading brands in the audio, video, subscription
broadcasting, connected home, home energy management, and mobile device
markets. UEI’s many first-to-market innovations have helped transform
the home entertainment control, home security, and home energy
management and sensing industries. More information is available at www.uei.com
and quicksetcloud.com.

All trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective
owners.

Nevo and QuickSet
are trademarks of Universal Electronics Inc.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are made
pursuant to the Safe-Harbor provisions of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words and expressions reflecting
something other than historical fact are intended to identify
forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve a
number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development,
delivery and market acceptance of UEI’s Nevo Butler, associated service
offerings, and other products and technologies identified in this
release; the continued penetration and growth of the products and
consumer technologies identified in this release; and other factors
described in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. The actual results that the Company achieves may
differ materially from any forward-looking statement due to such risks
and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligations to
revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect
events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

Contacts

Benny Canady
Universal Electronics Inc.
bcanady@uei.com
714-918-9500