Amazon unveils new Echo that can show as well as tell
Device’s touchscreen, camera bring video conferencing, weather and sports highlights
SAN FRANCISCO— Amazon Inc.’s voiceactivated Echo speakers already tell you things. Now, they can show you stuff, too.
On Tuesday, the Seattle-based giant unveiled the Echo Show, which features a seven-inch touchscreen that can pull up calendar appointments, display music lyrics, play videos and a lot more. Bloomberg reported on the new device last November. The Echo Show will cost $229 (U.S.) when it goes on sale in the U.S. in late June, $50 more than the current high-end model. The debut follows last month’s introduction of the Echo Look, which can evaluate a user’s wardrobe. Including the two new entrants, Amazon will have five products in the Echo lineup, all powered by the Alexa digital assistant.
None of the Echo products are available in Canada.
Amazon’s gadget business isn’t about big profits; it’s a way to hook consumers into the company’s fastgrowing retail business and get people to sign up for the lucrative Prime subscription service. Meanwhile, Amazon has managed to outflank Google, which began selling its Home device two years after the Echo debuted, and Apple, which is still working on its own Siri-based version. Amazon won’t say how many Echos have been sold, but it has grabbed 70 per cent of the U.S. market for voice-assisted speakers, according to eMarketer, with Google accounting for most of the rest.
In a demonstration at Amazon’s San Francisco offices, the Echo Show displayed full weather forecasts, news headlines and LeBron James highlights. The company says the device will also play camera feeds from such connected devices as baby monitors and camera-equipped doorbells. Services that already connect to the Echo will be able to display information — how far an Uber is from your front door or the basic box score for a basketball game. Alexa currently supports 12,000 “skills,” Amazon’s term for third-party services, and over time will offer increasingly comprehensive information, such as the points scored by a specific player.
“We’re not trying to build a phone or tablet interface on this, but extend that ambient nature of what you already have with an Echo,” says Amazon devices chief Dave Limp, who has been testing the Show at home for about a year.
This is the first Echo speaker with a built-in camera. The five-megapixel sensor makes possible a new videoconferencing service that Amazon is rolling out alongside the new hardware. Similar to Apple’s FaceTime, the service lets people make video calls from one Echo Show to another, or between the Show and an updated Alexa app on a smartphone. The service doubles as an intercom, allowing a person to call an Alexa speaker in another room without a camera. Users can’t currently make cellphone calls via the Echo Show.