New gadget from Amazon wants to help pick your outfit
Soon, Amazon’s voice assistant will be able to answer your most burning question: Alexa, does this make my butt look big?
Amazon has announced the Echo Look, a $200 voice-activated camera that will take full-length pictures of your outfits, by using the command “Alexa, take a photo.” It can also take videos — “Alexa, take a video” — to let you check yourself out from multiple angles, through a live feed from the Look beamed to your smartphone.
It is, essentially, the high-tech alternative to a friend. Or a mirror.
The Echo Look will require its own app on your phone to work. It is the first in the Alexa-powered family of Echo devices to carry a camera. All photos and video the Look records will be accessible through this app, although they are stored locally and in Amazon’s cloud. Users will be able to delete images at any time, said Amazon spokeswoman Michelle Taylerson.
It takes a full-length photo of you using a voice command, using a hightech, depth-sensing camera that seems a bit overpowered for the job. Sure, millennials are selfie obsessed, but this sounds like something that would be used regularly only by influencers and other digital tastemakers.
It also lets you keep an archive of all your outfit photos — a feature that caters only to our self-indulgence, not one that does anything to make shopping or getting dressed meaningfully easier.
Then there’s the Style Check feature, which offers advice on which of multiple outfits to wear based on machine learning and “advice from fashion specialists.” The company says it will take into account trends and what is most flattering.
The Echo Look does not yet have a shipping date, but anyone can sign up for an invitation to buy it.