Amazon certainly don’t hold back. They joined Apple recently as a Trillion dollar company and overnight they held what I can only describe as one of the biggest set of product announcements from a single Tech company I’ve seen.
At my count, twelve products were announced. Yep. twelve.
A new Echo Subwoofer, Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Input, Echo Show, an Amplifier, Receiver, PVR, Smart Switch, an Echo for your car and even a Microwave and a Clock.
Crazy stuff.
Calm the farm though. Australia won’t be getting them all – yet
From what we can tell four of them will hit Australia – Shipping next month, pre-orders have opened today at Amazon.com.au
Here’s what we know about the devices we’re getting.
Echo Show – $349
This is the big deal – We’ve reviewed the Echo Spot and love that we can summon cameras from outside the home to appear on the screen – but that’s a small screen.
Echo Show has a 10 inch screen and is designed to sit front and centre in the home for you to watch content on, browse the web and get information at a glance like news and weather.
With several Google Assistant based smart screens hitting the market before Christmas this is an important product for Amazon – though at $349 it’s a touch pricey.
Echo Plus – $229
An upgrade to the larger Echo speaker the plus still has the integrated smarthome hub built in, with an upgraded speaker inside and a fresh new design – the previous one was starting to date.
Echo Sub – $199
Add some depth to your music – you can now add a Subwoofer to your Echo speakers – you’ll probably only want to do if you have a couple of speakers paired up Stereo style – but if sound is your thing – time to add a Sub.
Echo Dot – $79
A much better looking Dot is coming – a new fabric design, louder and “crisper” sound for the entry level device to the Alexa family.
What’s not coming.
Just quickly, because hey – they may come – but more because it’s fascinating to see how deep the product range is for a company of this scale in America, here’s the other new products:
Microwave – This thing has a built in “dash” button which can be programmed to instantly order something from Amazon – perhaps popcorn? And we assume you can voice control it to start and stop too.
Clock – Analogue clock, hanging on the wall – but it sets the time automatically for Daylight Saving, plus it shows any times you have active using lights on the minute increments.
Auto – Strange thing this, like a little Bluetooth speaker for your car, which also enables Alexa integration for a hands free experience in the car.
Receiver – If you’ve got a decent HiFi system, this receiver is a bit more high end than an Echo Dot. So you can stream your Alexa based music content into your existing system.
Amplifier – if you’ve got great speakers, this Amp can bring Alexa to them.
Recast (DVR) – This expands the “Amazon Fire TV” concept and adds antenna so you can record your free to air TV content, but then watch it on any device, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Very much like Slingbox – but again, this has never been a “thing” here in Australia.
Echo Input – A cheaper Echo Dot – without the speaker, so you can plug Alexa into any existing speaker
So there you have it, massive day for Amazon globally, big day in Australia but not amazing. We really do need to get our market to a maturity level whereby these announcements can be truly global. One day.
