Yesterday, Amazon took to their virtual stage and unveiled a ton of new hardware products for you. We got new Amazon hardware, new smart home products, & new software features via Alexa. So we got more robots that can be viewed as invasive, the return of the in-home drone w/ camera, new fitness bands, and more. Let’s break down all of the big things from it shall we?
Amazon’s take on Google’s Nest Thermostat gives us their own version but w/ a lot lower price point. Its made w/ Honeywell Home Thermostat Technology w/ over 130 years of experience. So you can use your smartphone or Alexa-powered smart home device to control via voice as well as the option to walk up to it & control it manually.
It does require requires a C-wire or a power adapter kit to install so keep that in mind. It is quoted to save you $50 annually off of your energy bill. The Amazon Smart Thermostat retails for only $60 as you can pre-order yours now as its due out on November 4th.
To combat against porch pirates, we got the all-new + improved Blink Video Doorbell. This will grant you 1080p video w/ infrared night-time video + 2-way audio, motion detection, custom alerts, long battery life, and the option to save/share clips to the cloud w/ a free 30-day trial the Blink subscription plan that can hold up to 60 days of footage. The new Blink Video Doorbell will cost you $50 as you can pre-order now to arrive on October 21st.
Their 2nd-gen Halo fitness tracker adds a much-needed screen w/ the new Halo View to better compete against the likes of Fitbit. The AMOLED touchscreen display adds more on-device functionality to the Halo. You can view messages, heart-rate, sleep-tracking, blood oxygen levels and more w/o having to go to phone for everything.
Along w/ the touchscreen, it adds a new Halo Fitness service that gives you 12 months of full access to exclusive membership features, workouts, and programs for free and then $4 per month afterwards. Coming soon is their nutrition-tracking service called Halo Nutrition which will roll out in January.
The Halo View will cost you $80 as you can pre-order now set to arrive around the holidays.
Next up, we got the Amazon Echo Glow which is video/learning tool designed for kids in mind. This is a device w/ an 8inch display + webcam to see friends/family coupled w/ touch-sensitive tabletop projector for games, art, & books. Amazon has worked w/ Disney, Mattel, Nickelodeon, & Sesame Workshop for content.
Now you can’t pre-order it but you can request an invite to buy one via their early access program. If chosen, it will cost you $250 and when it becomes official to everyone, the price will be $300.
Alexa goes big w/ their upcoming Echo Show 15 display. Yes,the number 15 usually indicated the screen size and the same applies here. You got a 15.6inch 1080p touchscreen display, a 5MP camera for video calls, & powered by their new AZ2 CPU. This meant to be a shared hub for families to put notes, access calendars, recipes, stream content from Netlfix, Prime Video, & more. It can be mounted in landscape or portrait layouts as well as change profiles according to your Visual or Voice ID.
The Amazon Echo Show 15 is due out later this year for $250. You can sign up to be notified via email when pre-orders go live.
And last but not least, we got Amazon Astro: their new home assistant robot. It is a robot that has wheels to roll around the house yet cannot go up & down the stairs though. It has a 10inch touchscreen to show off its ‘face’ and helps w/ home security monitoring, a rear cart to transport things around the house, can video chat w/ loved ones, and more. Think of it as a beta version of Rosie from the Jetsons.
It is apart of their Amazon Day 1 Edition program as you will have to request an invite to buy one. It will cost $1,000 and will start rolling out to select customers later this year.
