Some companies, like Apple, build the hype of their event over months. Amazon, on the other hand, apparently just surprises us on a Wednesday with new gadgets, from upgrades to the Echo to, no kidding, the most advanced alarm clock you will ever own. Here’s everything Amazon revealed today.
Amazon Echo Plus
The centerpiece was Amazon’s big upgrade to the Echo, the Echo Plus, shipping on Halloween. At $149, the big selling point of the Plus is that it’s supposed to just work with a string of different smart home gadgets, like the Phillips Hue bulb. Amazon showed off a demo where the Plus was told to search for smart home gadgets, found them, and automatically set up everything. No apps, no skills, just boom! Connected. It’s impressive, but whether it works outside the event space remains to be seen.
Beyond that, there’s one other major upgrade for your money, as the Echo Plus now has Dolby support.
Amazon Echo Spot
An upgrade to the Echo Dot, the surprisingly useful little hockey puck Amazon sells, the $129 Spot has a screen that Amazon mostly imagines as an alarm clock, for now. But it’s capable of making video calls, playing back your streaming music (the usual suspects: Prime Music, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn), and serving as an unobtrusive smart gadget that you can network throughout your house. It’s an interesting idea, but we’ve got to ask who wants to make a video call from an alarm clock. It arrives later this year.
Amazon Echo
The original Echo has gotten an overhaul as well. First off, the price has been cut to $99, and it’s been made shorter and less obtrusive with a cloth cover instead of metal. But the guts have gotten an upgrade, with a bass tweeter, and it now supports what Echo fans have been demanding for a while — multi-room audio. It’ll also support free phone calls in the US, Canada and Mexico, and you can get a three-pack for $250.
Amazon Fire TV
The Fire TV is one of many set-top boxes fighting to stream you stuff, and Amazon, hoping to put it ahead, has cut the price to $80 while upgrading it with 4K 60fps streaming, HDR, and a smaller form factor. Now it’s not even a box, but a small flat dongle that hangs off your TV. It’ll ship October 25th.
Echo Connect
Perhaps the most interesting gadget Amazon snuck in as a boring $35 box. The Connect plugs into the wall and connects to your Echo device. From there? You can call anybody via your Echo in the US, Canada or Mexico. You’ll need landline phone service, with the old-school cord, which limits this a bit. But it’s still attention-getting, and especially for those concerned about elder care, it might make for an interesting upgrade to their homes.
Amazon sees an advantage over Apple in this area, clearly, especially with the high-priced HomePod.
(via The Verge)