Amazon Launches New $99 Echo Speaker With Better Sound and $149 Echo Plus Smart Home Hub

[lakerchick4life]

The Echo Plus looks nice I just dont think it will be necessary for me since I dont have smart home products..the HomePod of course looks nice but 349 is way too much to spend so I guess the smaller version Echo might be the way to go..IF the only difference between that and the Echo Plus is the smart home features

 

[mmm1345]

Wow, $99 and for black Friday and Cyber Monday it'll be $50. Other than the logo and crappy Siri, what is the compelling reason to spend $350 on Apple's HomePod? I'm an Apple Household and as an aspirational goal, I'd love a home pod. But Siri absolutely sucks and I already have a Home theater. So paying $350 for a speaker is just dumb when I can get this and it'll do everything the HomePod can and until Apple really opens up Siri to other Apps, Alexa is just better.

 

[collegitdept]

Wow, $99 and for black Friday and Cyber Monday it'll be $50. What is the compelling reason to spend $350 on Apple's HomePod?

Siri?

This is what fanboys do NOT understand..... hardware is commodity. SOFTWARE is how Apple charges a premium

This is why, you can make the same argument for iPhone hardware specs...but iPhone wins anyway because of iOS


HomePod is like Apple TV.... Apple has no desire to be good at services, so services dependent hardware fails

I really do question about the future.... as more & more usage on mobile becomes more productive especially around intelligent software & AI.... will people be *forced* to switch away from iOS?

 

[mmm1345]

Siri?

"I'm sorry I don't understand you..."

 

[deany]

I'm guessing most people's homes can be covered with a single router anyway, so the benefit of a mesh network ability is a bit dubious.

SONOS on wifi is an available option but SONOS net is more robust.

 

[Sy7ygy]

Meh. For $99 you it may have better sound than their previous speakers but it's not going to be on the level of the HomePod.

I wouldn't even go as far as to call it direct competition. Then intentions of the two devices are much different.

Quite.

One has the intention to bring a quality, reasonably priced item; While the other is intended to mask little advantages with a bloated price and lackluster ecosystem.

The HomePod is pathetic.

 

[jerryk]

Keep in mind you can't use bluetooth speakers with multi-room audio, which is an important feature for a lot of people.

Thanks for pointing this out. Do you know why this limitation exists? Also, I assume you could use the 3.5 mm jack to the speaker instead of the BT connection in multi-room.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

You're saying because it's $349 it will be better than the $99 one. You are exactly saying more expensive automatically means better.

Well the $185 Prada paper clip doesn't do anything better than the 1 cent paperclip from staples. It just has a name stamped on it.

And all we know for sure about the HomePod is it's going to have a much fatter margin than any other voice assistant speaker on the market.

I'm saying that we know the additional cost went in to far superior components.

You seem completely unable to believe that something that costs more could be better than something that costs less. I'm sure you believe that a Toyota Camry is a better race car than a Porsche 911.

 

[jerryk]

In which case it's more like AirPlay 2 than Sonos. My point is that speaker agnostic solutions are better than ones that lock you into one manufacturer, i.e. Sonos et al.

Agreed. Let the user choose their speakers, use the ones they already have and upgrade without fear of being incompatible.

 

[Karma*Police]

Laughing at the Echo connect, who still has a home phone these days? I know there are some, but really, it is very few people.

The smart speaker is a solution desperately looking for a problem. It's neither smart nor produce good audio (at least, in the case of Echo and Google Home).

My Apple Watch is a better assistant by virtue of it having a screen and always being on me, and my AirPlay speaker blows away Echo for sound quality.

The only problem is that my AirPlay speaker can't be paired with another speaker for true stereo. This is where HomePod and AirPlay 2 compatible speakers will make a big difference.

 

[Foggydog]

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.

Ahem, I resemble that remark. Try people over 60. I’m 52 and haven’t had a landline since 2004. In 2004 I was 40

 

[vipergts2207]

Alexa dot + surround sound beats anything that comes out of HomePod.
Do people actually want a single speaker style design(I know it’s multiple).
I’d rather use that money to build a surround sound for my tv entertainment center and have an assistant for home controls.

Agreed, though I'd replace the suggested Dot with an ATV 4K.

 

[840quadra]

[doublepost=1506552831][/doublepost]Check out the HomePod page specs on Apple before claiming that it only has ONE tweeter... https://www.apple.com/homepod/

You misunderstand my post.

I am doubting the Echo's single woofer and tweeter can match the sound quality of the HomePod. I watched the keynote, read the article from which this thread is attached to. I am well aware of the sound array and audio tech specs of the HomePod.

It is the main reason I referenced bouncing sound off walls to help with sound imaging.

 

[Jakexb]

I appreciate that Amazon recognizes that a big use of the Echo is for elderly parents. Features like "Drop In", where you can listen in (with a prominent "listening" alert sound) on an Echo and start a speakerphone-like conversation. And now the Echo Connect which let's a user call for help on a landline. This kind of stuff is huge for that specific demographic and I'm glad Amazon has acknowledged that use case.

 

[ersan191]

Thanks for pointing this out. Do you know why this limitation exists? Also, I assume you could use the 3.5 mm jack to the speaker instead of the BT connection in multi-room.

As far as I know, it's because there is no way to guarantee the audio is synchronized via bluetooth, all bluetooth devices have different delays and if the audio isn't perfectly in sync on every device it will sound terrible.

 

[dan110]

Although quality of sound is important, its also about functionality. I would hope that HomePod turns out to be more than just a streaming speaker

With the impotent efforts coming out of Apple Inc these days, I'm sure Tim will say, "The HomePod is the best speaker ever.". It won't have any other useful functions other than connecting to Apple Music and taking your money for iTunes purchases.

 

[DevNull0]

I'm saying that we know the additional cost went in to far superior components.

You seem completely unable to believe that something that costs more could be better than something that costs less. I'm sure you believe that a Toyota Camry is a better race car than a Porsche 911.

You have it backwards. I'm saying the more expensive item may or not be better. You're the one saying the $350 item automatically has to be better than the $100 item.

And we certainly don't know that the additional cost went into far superior components. The HomePod is vapourware at this point, we know nothing about what it's going to be made from.

 

[vipergts2207]

You have it backwards. I'm saying the more expensive item may or not be better. You're the one saying the $350 item automatically has to be better than the $100 item.

And we certainly don't know that the additional cost went into far superior components. The HomePod is vapourware at this point, we know nothing about what it's going to be made from.

Here’s something we do know though. The HomePod uses a 4” driver and the echo plus uses a 2.5” driver. Now don’t get me wrong, both are piddly little things compared to a real speaker, but the 4” driver is over 2.5x the area of the 2.5” driver. Amazon can’t break the laws of physics. The larger driver and larger enclosure means the HomePod will move more air, play lower and louder, and because of those things will easily sound better.

 

[jeyf]

$99 i not a lot of money to pay. will it really sound four times as bad as the homePod or only three times as bad?

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

You have it backwards. I'm saying the more expensive item may or not be better. You're the one saying the $350 item automatically has to be better than the $100 item.

And we certainly don't know that the additional cost went into far superior components. The HomePod is vapourware at this point, we know nothing about what it's going to be made from.

I'm saying the HomePod has superior components and is built for a far different purpose than the Echo. Amazon doesn't mean for the Echo to be a specialized music playback device and as thus it's simply not on the level with the HomePod when it comes to music playback which was designed for that specific purpose.

Put your money where your mouth is. $100 bet the HomePod will be rated to have superior music sound quality compared to the Echo Plus by the major review sites.

 

[Michael Scrip]

$99 i not a lot of money to pay. will it really sound four times as bad as the homePod or only three times as bad?

Good question... though the average consumer doesn't really care about sound quality like audiophiles do. Compressed MP3s and streaming audio are evidence of that! Though people seem to like to ask Alexa "play so-n-so" despite it not sounding very good.

And you can think about it the other way too... you can get three Echo 2 for $100 less than the price of a single HomePod.

Or you can get the 3-pack of Echo 2 for $250 + an extra one for $100 which would be the same price as a HomePod.

Do you want Alexa in 3 or 4 rooms... or just one room with the HomePod?

I think that's what people will be more concerned with rather than outright sound quality.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Here’s something we do know though. The HomePod uses a 4” driver and the echo plus uses a 2.5” driver. Now don’t get me wrong, both are piddly little things compared to a real speaker, but the 4” driver is over 2.5x the area of the 2.5” driver. Amazon can’t break the laws of physics. The larger driver and larger enclosure means the HomePod will move more air, play lower and louder, and because of those things will easily sound better.

The Echo Plus also has a single tweeter. The HomePod has 7. It uses advanced software to take into account the layout of the room in order to provide the highest-fidelity sound throughout the room based on that information, though the use of 6 microphones.

The high-excursion woofer has a custom amp (the woofer, and each of the 7 tweeters each have their own custom amplifiers) that can drive the diaphragm 22mm, something the Echo isn't anywhere near doing.

Tweeters have a very narrow sound beam. With the Echo Plus you have just 1. The HomePod has 7, meaning it can provide far better 360º audio.

Apple uses the A8X chip to do real-time modeling of the woofer mechanics, echo cancellation, and much more. It also has an internal low-frequency calibration microphone for automatic bass correction.

And yet this DevNull0 thinks the Echo Plus, something that offers none of that, will be able to exceed the HomePod in sound quality. Dude is delusional.

 

[VMMan]

I just got a Samsung SmartThings hub still in the box, but the Echo Plus sounds interesting. I’m assuming with the Echo Plus that I wouldn’t need a hub, like SmartThings?

EDIT
The Echo Plus description only mentions ZigBee support, while the Samsung supports Z-wave and ZigBee along with SmartThings.

 

[x-evil-x]

Agreed, though I'd replace the suggested Dot with an ATV 4K.

That too. I use the dot for home automation stuff and alarms only.

 

[jkruehne]

Amazon's new Echo, image via TechCrunch​

(…)

so pictured left is the new "Echo speaker" and pictured right is the new (glossy) "Echo Plus.." ?

: D