This week Microsoft & Harman Kardon announced an offer to give all active Harman Kardon “Invoke” intelligent speaker owners $50 in Microsoft Store credit.
CHANGES TO THE “HARMAN KARDON INVOKE”
In January 2021, Microsoft & Harman Kardon will be removing Cortana functionality for the “Invoke” speaker.
The Invoke hardware will STILL be functional as a Bluetooth-connected speaker through a firmware update that will be made available in early 2021. The update must be made within 6 months of it’s availability.
OBTAINING THE $50 MICROSOFT CREDIT:
Additionally, to quote the support site:
Microsoft is offering the opportunity to receive one Microsoft $50 gift card per active Invoke. This offer is for the owner of the latest U.S based Microsoft account used to set up an Invoke speaker that sent a voice request to the Cortana service after July 31, 2020 and prior to July 31, 2021.
In other words, this offer is only applicable to individuals that had a Harman Kardon Invoke speaker set up & had actually used it in the past year.
I’ve gone through the process myself and it took less than 60 seconds. Simply go to the redemption web site at , and login with the Microsoft account you used to set up the Harman Kardon Invoke. It will ask for the MAC address of the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker you are using (which is under the unit) and it’s immediately spit out a 25-digit Microsoft redemption code/”gift card”.
You can immediately redeem the code by clicking a button and it’ll add $50 in credit to your Microsoft Account – usable for anything you use your Microsoft Account to buy things such as:
- Microsoft Store applications
- Xbox games
- Microsoft 365/Office 365 consumer subscriptions
- Xbox Live/Xbox Game Pass subscriptions
- Visual Studio subscriptions
- OneDrive storage expansion
- Skype voice calling credit
Further details are available at the sites below:
- Microsoft Support’s notice about Cortana’s retirement in Harman Kardon Invoke:
http://aka.ms/invokesupport - Harman Kardon’s FAQ on Cortana retirement in Invoke:
http://aka.ms/invoke
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 