New technology: “an extraordinary and intriguing device”
Voice assistants have been on our phones for a long time, said James Titcomb in The Daily Telegraph, but “they haven’t really taken off”. It’s not hard to see why: Siri and Cortana are unreliable and awkward. But the Amazon Echo is different. Available in the US since last year, but only just released in this country, it’s a smart wireless speaker that uses Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa. And it’s just about “the most exciting gadget in years”.
The size of a wine bottle, the “sleek” Echo is an inconspicuous machine, said Tom Morgan in Stuff. It can lurk on a table “without becoming the centre of attention” – like a 21st century kitchen radio. To activate it, you just say “Alexa”; you can then ask it to answer general-knowledge questions, read the news or play music. To get more features, you can download apps – including Uber for ordering a car or Just Eat for a takeaway.
And it almost always understands what you’re saying, even if you’re in another room. Surprisingly, the Echo performs “humdrum” tasks best – setting timers or compiling shopping lists, which you can then access from your phone. But there are “futuristic” features, too: it can operate “smart home” gadgets, such as internetconnected thermostats and light bulbs.
Still, the Echo isn’t quite “smart enough”, said Sophie Curtis in the Daily Mirror. Quite a lot of questions you’d expect it to cope with are still “off-script”; for instance, it can’t tell you when a TV show is about to start. For a dedicated speaker, sound quality is disappointing; but Amazon has also released the Echo Dot, a £50 gadget that lets you use Alexa on any Bluetooth speaker. The Echo is undoubtedly an “extraordinary and intriguing” device, but it still has some way to go.