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"With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App."
Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...
In the United States, what is the need for speech recognition devices? At least in Japan and China, speech recognition technology does not reach practical level and needs are small.
"Alexa, play Kendrick Lamar on Spotify."
Just like that, I have music throughout the house and in the front and back yards. You can also get more specific with commands in order to limit where the music plays, what music service is polled, etc.
It is much easier than pulling out a device, navigating to the application, typing in a search string, selecting the artist, and clicking shuffle playback for all of the artist's songs.
Any echo owners feel like they would get additional value out of this? 90% of my interaction with my standard echo has been "what's the weather". Even when I want visual controls for music, I'd rather pull out my phone than walk over to a screen.
I think the biggest benefit is video calling. Get your parents one, get one yourself, schedule a video call with them once a week (or whatever). Easier than Facetime since you don't have to hold up the phone. Reminds me of the videophones in the Starship Troopers movie.
Any echo owners feel like they would get additional value out of this? 90% of my interaction with my standard echo has been "what's the weather". Even when I want visual controls for music, I'd rather pull out my phone than walk over to a screen.
It continues to surprise me how far ahead of them Apple is letting Amazon/Google get in this area. I've always been a big fan of Apple (despite their closed ecosystem), but have to admit that Amazon is seriously outplaying them on this front. Hopefully Apple surprises me and comes up with something even more innovative that can compete.
When I saw this, I actually had the opposite reaction. I remember when I first saw an iPod Nano with the color screen and the scroll wheel that magically scrolled up and down by just moving your finger around it without actually turning a wheel. It seemed like magic. Same thing when I first saw the iPhone/iPod Touch. Apple's products were very carefully designed and only released when they were perfect, and very rare…
I feel like this entire product could be a Chromecast-esque dongle that connects to a TV. Having a personal dashboard would actually be quite useful, but this seems like they want to sell appliances not experiences. Maybe they've gone with this form factor because of the 2x 2" speakers? But why would I want that when it could be plugged directly into my home audio setup? Or maybe it's so they can include a touchscree…
My TV takes 15 seconds on average to start up, and then another 3 or 4 to have sound. There is no easy way to turn them on and off in a reliable manner, and for some unknown reason many disable CEC by default...
Not to mention that having to choose between watching something on TV and using the device is an annoying decision to make in a lot of cases.
Are they just "announcing" these devices by putting them up for sale? It feels like we need an Echo keynote to learn about their direction and they could get a lot more hype that way.