Amazon launches Echo Dot and Echo Tap: Smart devices with Alexa
Amazon has announced two new devices in the Echo family: Echo Dot and Echo Tap. Amazon Echo offer the same functionality, but with form factor and very different intended uses.
At the end of 2014 Amazon, the e-commerce giant Jeff Bezos who is trying to expand into more markets, announced Echo. It was a very special device, a home virtual assistant with internal speakers 2.5″ based on Alexa feature, a kind of Siri for the Amazon ecosystem. In the traditional model the company started to support, two new similar products, Echo Dot and Echo Tap. Let’s see what it is.
Amazon Echo Dot
Echo Dot is the younger brother of Amazon Echo. The idea comes from the demands of the consumers themselves in the first model, who preferred to have a device with the same capabilities but connected to your home stereo. Amazon Echo Dot is so decidedly terse traditional Echo version, only 4 cm high and able to connect to a pair of external speakers via cable or Bluetooth.
Still it has an internal speaker and a microphone to receive and confirm the commands given to Alexa, the virtual assistant of the Bezos family of products that is available here in all its typical features.
Like the original model, Echo Dot is a kind of ” smart hub ” home. You can use it to turn on, turn off or set the brightness of Phillips Hue lights, manage the Nest Thermostat, or even just for fun by answering ” prepackaged ” that gives Alexa, in pure style Siri. Very particular sales methods: Amazon will sell the new Echo Dot exclusively via voice commands or with a device of Echo or Fire TV family. The particular device will cost $89.99, and about half that of his older brother, and the first deliveries will be made in the coming weeks. Unfortunately only in the US.
Amazon Echo Tap
Echo Tap is instead a portable version of the traditional Echo pattern, which also works thanks to the feats guaranteed by Alexa. Not being thought to be permanently connected to the mains, to issue the command must push a button and then say the words. Lets you use the voice control service Alexa ” on-the-go “, so it is possible for example to order a transport Uber, a pizza, or play any music from iTunes or Amazon Prime service, even on the move. Unfortunately, it does not have the support for the SIM, so its operation is necessary to connect to a Wi-Fi network or a hotspot.
The sound quality is guaranteed by a double-speaker system Dolby Stereo that simulates the spread of the sound source to 360° in the environment. The integrated battery instead lets you use the device for up to 9 hours of audio playback and three weeks in standby mode. Also Echo Tap will be available in the US in the coming weeks. The price, in this case, will be $129.99.
Amazon also said that Alexa can now perform more than 300 different operations, an element that shows how the company firmly believes in the project. Just last August, when the service API had not yet been released to developers. Alexa could only perform six different commands.
The situation has obviously changed, with the company that promised further updates and developments in the near future. Unfortunately, we do not expect, at least for the moment, the arrival of new products in our market.
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