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So instead of the usual refresh & same designs of their same hardware, Amazon did not do that today. They beefed up the internals as per usual, changed most of the designs, and dropped some innovative new things to add to their inventory. From new Echos, a new Echo Show 10, a new game streaming service, an in-home drone security camera, & more.
New Echos Reminiscent of the Older Nexus Q
The Echo has a new look sphere look to it and cooler features along w/ it. It now has built-in Zigbee support to control more smart products & act as a smart home hub as well as new Dolby-powered premium adaptive sound. The biggest change is the addition of their new AZ1 Neural Edge chip that will process your vocal commands using machine learning speech recognition before sending it off to the cloud. The new Echo will cost you $99 as it will arrive on October 22nd in charcoal, chalk, and steel blue color options. You can pre-order yours now BTW.
Their new Echo Dot Kids Edition keeps the new sphere look & adds panda or tiger designs to it as it will cost you $60. The smaller Echo Dot gets the new rounded-look as well but misses out on the premium sound & AZ1 chip. This will be a bit cheaper at $50 along w/ the new Echo Dot w/ Clock for $60 All are available for pre-order to day as well.
Fire TV Stick Looks The Same But Gets A New UI
Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick gets upgraded to look the same on the outside but slightly better on the inside. It adds Dolby Atmos audio support as well as faster internals. Along w/ this, Amazon is rolling out a new UI to add user support, favorites, & overall better navigation. The new Fire TV Stick w/ Alexa Remote will cost you $40 but then they added a new Fire TV Stick Lite for $30. Both will be available on September 30th.
Their Echo Show 10 Gets An Screen That Follows Your Face
So the new Echo Show 10 has big new trick up its sleeve w/ a rotating screen w/ a manual tilt attached to a motorized base. This allows your Echo Show display to follow your face while your watching media or on video chats. Outside of that, they just added Netflix support to it as well not make it even more useful. You got a 10.1inch display w/ 1280 x 800 resolution, powered by a Mediatek CPU, armed w/ their new AZ1 neural chip, 2 1inch tweeters + a 3inch woofer, and a 13MP camera w/ manual shutter + camera cover. Amazon didn’t say when it was coming but you can pre-order it now as it will cost $250.
New Eero Routers Add Wi-Fi 6 Support & More
Amazon’s Eero routers get an upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 as well as the ability to be used as a Zigbee Smart Home Hub to add Alexa support. The standard Eero 6 does all that I previously mentioned as the Eero 6 Plus adds faster speeds can cover up to 2,000 sq ft per router, & support for up to 75 devices. Both offers 2 Ethernet ports, a USB-C port, and are backwards compatible to work w/ older Eero products.
The Eero 6 will cost you $130 while the Eero 6 Plus will cost you $230. Both are up for pre-order & will ship on November 2nd.
Amazon Get Ambitious w/ Their In-Home Security Drone
The Ring Always Home Cam is probably the most ambitious (if that’s the right word for it) thing Amazon announced today. So its a Ring security product that can fly and record footage in your home if it senses unwarranted motion detection. It records 1080p video in-flight w/ enclosed propellers – indoor only though. It can patrol your home and dock back to its case to charge. Not sure how well this will hold up against privacy laws and such. This is due out sometime next year for $250.
Amazon goes Against Game Pass + Stadia w/ Their Own Game Streaming Service
And last but not least, Amazon dropped their very own cloud-based game streaming service called Luna. This will be AWS-powered (that also handles the backend of most of the Internet) to go against Google’s Stadia & Microsoft’s Game Pass. It will arrive on Fire TV, PC, Mac, iPhone, & Android support coming soon.
Amazon is hoping to have over 100 games via their Luna Plus channel like Resident Evil 7, Control, Panzer Dragoon, A Plague Tale: Innocence, The Surge 2, Yooka-Laylee, GRID, Abzu, and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to name a few. They also have their own Luna Controller w/ low latency when you use their Cloud Direct technology which will cost $50 during their early access period. It will have an introductory price of $6 per month when it launches. You can request early access to the beta version of the service.
