With Amazon’s new devices, run your smart home with your voice
Inc. unveiled its vision for smart homes powered by the Alexa voice assistant, with a dizzying array of new gadgets and features for almost every room in the house—from a microwave oven to a security camera and wall clock.
Amazon is pushing Alexa more deeply into customers’ lives, hoping to popularize technology that has yet to go mainstream and connecting people more to its universe of things to buy. Chief executive Jeff Bezos sees voice as the next interface linking people and machines, like a mouse on personal computers and touchscreens on smartphones. The hockey puckshaped Dot is one of Amazon’s best-selling devices, and with 70% better sound it’s going after audiophiles. Amazon also introduced a subwoofer to go along with existing Echo products as well as a pair of amplifiers that work like audio control centers for the home.
Amazon also made improvements to the Echo Show speaker, adding a bigger screen and better sound, qualities that will help it stack up to Google’s high-end device. Alexa is also busting out of the Echo speakers’ curved plastic casing—and will now respond directly to commands on a new $60 (around ₹4,300) AmazonBasics-branded microwave oven. For users who may be flummoxed by proper cook times on regular microwaves, now consumers can simply say “defrost peas” or “cook a baked potato” without having to figure out how long that will take. Also new is the Alexa Guard, a home security product that can detect breaking glass as well as smoke or carbon dioxide and send an alert to your phone.
The Echo Wall Clock means you won’t have to worry about the switch to daylight savings time again,
Limp said.