In a flurry of announcements ahead of its upcoming Prime Early Access Sale, eCommerce giant Amazon made clear that its second sales event of the year will be as much about showcasing its upgraded line of consumer electronics and deepening its digital ecosystem as it is about getting a jump on holiday sales.
From the lineup, it’s clear that Amazon thinks connected everything will be a major buying theme this winter, debuting a next-gen Fire TV Cube TV with HDMI port enabling connections to more (presumably) Amazon devices and programming, thus creating millions more Amazon-centric homes.
There’s also the Fire TV Omni Series touting “Ambient Experience” by acting as an always on, Alexa-activated smart assistant when not being used to view programming.
As would be expected, Alexa has a voice in the new TV setup, with Amazon unveiling a souped-up remote control featuring a new “Alexa, find my remote” command that could be a much-welcomed breakthrough for millions of forgetful couch potatoes.
The “Alexa Voice Remote Pro” has two new customizable buttons enabling viewers to personalize and program one-touch shortcuts to favorite apps, channels and anything Alexa can do, including dimming the lights or checking the weather.
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Security and … Pet Detection
Outside the TV room and beyond the TV and voice product enhancements, Amazon has also revealed five different iterations of its Echo smart speaker system, including Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Dot Kids, Echo Studio and Echo Auto — all equipped with new sensors that — you guessed it — empower Alexa to deliver contextual experiences via voice command in the home or car.
“With the upgraded audio and compact form factors, each of these new devices give customers more ways to make Alexa a seamless part of their day,” Nedim Fresko, vice president of Amazon Alexa Devices, said in a press release, noting that the new built-in sensors and technology allow people to have Alexa do even more tasks on their behalf.
As for health-linked products, Amazon rolled out a bedside sleep monitoring device, Halo Rise, that features environmental sensors that measure room temperature, humidity and light levels all aimed at capturing the growing markets for sleep analytics.
On the robotics front, Amazon has had a year to fine-tune its Astro device for home and business use, which it has now synced-up with its Ring Virtual Security Guard tech. In doing so, Amazon ecosystem users can remotely summon Astro to go check out why an alarm was triggered and to send back live video of the scene. This tech also has potential to help caregivers monitor homebound seniors who might have fallen or moved to a different area.
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There’s also something new for the animal owners of the world, a demographic that is not only large and growing since the pandemic but has proven to be unusually willing to spend at a time when belt tightening is the norm.
“Astro will help you keep an eye on your pet, whether you are on the move or just in another part of the house,” a blog post stated, allowing owners to see a short video clip of the pet action or even speak to pets remotely.
Not mentioned during the event was the Roomba automated vacuum, but Kindle fans were treated to Kindle Scribe, “Designed for reading and notetaking in millions of books, adding notes to documents, journaling and more.”
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