Its targeting the older generations I know my grandparents will love it they already send me messages via Alexa throughout the day the ability to make a receive calls will be used a lot. For $34 the 911 feature alone is worth it.
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Amazon Launches New $99 Echo Speaker With Better Sound and $149 Echo Plus Smart Home Hub
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Thanks, we certainly all appreciate your most professional opinion on something you haven’t even heard yet much less seen.
[doublepost=1506539156][/doublepost]One thing I must say about Amazon and their native products; with their competitive pricing and strong innovation, they’re at least driving up the competition which could only benefit the consumer.
I remember walking into a Bose store once and they invited us to a little theater room in the back where we took our seats. They had a large screen TV on the wall with a horizontal sound bar under it and speakers all around the wall, covered by cloths to disguise their branding.
They played some demo clips showing off their surround sound system and how believable it sounded. Nothing special, mostly "yeah yeah we've got 5.1s at home, who cares."
A few minutes of boredom later, they came in and took off the cloths one by one. No speakers. Just soundbar.
You suffer from NIA.
Not Invented by Apple.
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Most intelligent post I've read so far on this.
I cancelled my home phone service a decade ago, but it appears there are still tens of millions of people in the US alone that still have a home phone. Mostly folks over 40.
Sticking with Apple on this category. I have an Echo but I am too deep in with Apple's Eco system that it makes sense to go with Apple's unreleased future speaker product.
I have a Bose soundbar hooked up to my Echo dot the sound quality is amazing and its multi purpose.
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Most people here seem to be hating on it but for $99 with improved hardware over the original and multi room sound... yeah seems pretty cool to me
What's so funny about having a backup land line? It works during a power outage. Do you know bank branches that use VOIP have at least one backup landline for emergency and security alarm?
More interested in the new Amazon TV 4K. If it can run apps and support both HEVC and VP9 4K@60fps it might replace my Chromecast Ultra 4K.
Update: Found the specs (FTV gen 3) and they look promising so far.
https://developer.amazon.com/public...re-tv/docs/device-and-platform-specifications
Update: Found the specs (FTV gen 3) and they look promising so far.
https://developer.amazon.com/public...re-tv/docs/device-and-platform-specifications
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Is this a case of Apple being meticulous in launching a premium product or a slow and bloated company that takes months to release a speaker?
Apple have never been first to a product line, but when they do arrive, it's usually well thought out and a premium product. That premium however now also very much includes the price and eventually there will be a tipping point.
Haha, I had the same demo but maybe a few years before soundbars got popular. Went into a room with these huge speakers, they played a demo, sounded loud and crisp and everyone was like "big deal, those speakers are huge" and then they removed the covers and they were actually TINY little satellites. Was pretty impressive at the time.
What an awful looking picture. Looks like a dingy kitchen from the 50s. And how come we can see clearly see the power cord for that weird coffee water pot thing but no cord on the Echo? Is it battery powered or are they hiding cable behind the Echo so that someone walking by table will trip on it?
At an event in Seattle this morning, Amazon unveiled its next-generation Amazon Echo speaker, which features a new smaller design and better sound than the original Echo to compete with products like Apple's upcoming HomePod.
Apple focused heavily on sound quality as a way to differentiate the HomePod from existing smart speakers like the Google Home and the Amazon Echo, with a 7 tweeter array, a 4-inch upward-facing woofer, and an A8 processor capable of advanced acoustic modeling and spatial awareness. Shortly after the HomePod was unveiled, rumors of a higher-end Echo surfaced.
Amazon's new Echo supports Dolby Audio and it has a dedicated woofer and tweeter, features Amazon says bring better sound. It also includes second-generation voice recognition capabilities, second-generation far-field microphone technology, and support for multi-room audio so several Echo devices can be used together.
The Echo is made from metal and is wrapped in a fabric shell, which can be swapped out with other shells for customization much like the Google Home. Amazon is offering six shells for the Echo.
Amazon plans to charge $99 for the new Echo, making it much more affordable than the HomePod, which will be priced at $349 when it launches in December. Pre-orders for the new Echo are available today.
There's also a new Echo Plus, with built-in Zigbee functionality for smart home hub functionality and all of the same improvements in the new Echo model. It's designed to work with a wide range of smart home products right out of the box, with over 100 partners signed up. Echo Plus is similar in design to the original Echo, while the new $99 Echo is smaller and shorter. Amazon is charging $149 for the Echo Plus, and it comes with a free Philips Hue bulb.
Echo Buttons, also new, are priced at $20 and are designed to allow Echo owners to play trivia games with the Echo, and the Echo Spot is a new Echo device that features a 2.5-inch circular display. It's a cross between an Echo and a smart alarm clock with a price tag of $130.
Along with the new Echo models, Amazon announced the $35 Echo Connect, a device that's designed to plug into a phone jack on one side and an Echo on the other, allowing the Echo to be used as a telephone able to accept calls from a person's standard home phone number. The Echo Connect is also available for pre-order today. Amazon Echo speakers are also gaining call functionality that will let them make phone calls to any number.
Article Link: Amazon Launches New $99 Echo Speaker With Better Sound and $149 Echo Plus Smart Home Hub
Sure...I get that. But June announcement of a HomePod that won't ship for 6 months? Is there some 3D sensor that is in short supply?
It just seems every well intentioned, well-thought out product (AirPods, x-Phone), is a manufacturing headache.
There is no way that this will sound close to the audio quality of the HomePod, but you have to consider you can buy four of these for the same price as one HomePod (With the $50 3 pack discount)...
Yeah I hear you, it's an interesting point. Another view is that perhaps they are just drip feeding products to max out revenues. By that I mean if you punt out three devices people might only buy one or two of them - by the time they are in a position to get the second/third device, it is perhaps considered old hat or competitors have caught up. Maybe a (very) slow and steady pipeline wins the race. Releasing news of future products keeps the customer hungry.
Of course, I could be confusing lethargy for strategy...
Laugh away. It's perfect for elderly parents, and in fact, my own wife who spends her time on our landline.
(During the last big Northeast blackout, we were about the only house on our road who still had phone service. Everyone else had cells and the cells ran out of power in a couple of days. People would sheepishly come by and ask to use our landline to call their parents to let them know they were okay. When Superstorm Sandy later hit, a lot of them had learned a lesson and were better prepared.)
I was at the Apple Keynote in San Jose and had a chance to check out the HomePod hands on.
You're really going to argue that something with just a single small woofer and a single tweeter is going to sound better than 7 tweeters and a high-excursion woofer in the HomePod?
And who said the home pod was going against amazon echo?
If anything, with Airplay 2 with multi room audio support, its more Sonos that happens to have extra features like siri.
If anything, with Airplay 2 with multi room audio support, its more Sonos that happens to have extra features like siri.
And not only did it take them so long... Apple is entering this market with a premium priced device. In fact... it's the most expensive home-automation-speaker-thing to date!
This isn't that unusual for Apple... but still.
I just read that you can get a 3-pack of Amazon Echo 2 for only $250.
It's gonna be another Alexa Christmas...
Because that's all a lot of places can get.
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And Atmos. Though I see no mention of Dolby Vision.
I can tell you that having heard the HomePod after the Keynote, there's little technical possibility the much smaller Echo with a single small woofer and single tweeter setup will be able to come even into the neighborhood of matching it.
The HomePod was designed specifically to play music, with a powerful processor, beam forming, and much more. The Echo was designed to be a personal assistant first and foremost. The fact that it has somewhat better sound than other Echo devices doesn't mean it's on the same level as the HomePod.
