Chattier Amazon Alexa, New Blink and Ring Cameras Coming This Fall
Amazon says its expanded use of generative AI will improve everything from Fire TV searches to smart home devices and kids' products
Today, Amazon announced over a dozen new devices, including Echo speakers, Fire TV devices, Fire tablets, and the company’s first wall-mounted smart home hub device, called the Echo Hub.
In addition, the company revealed several software improvements for its devices, with a heavy focus on using generative AI. These AI features cover everything from a new Let’s Chat mode for Alexa to custom artwork for Fire TVs.
Amazon is touting generative AI as a way to greatly improve Alexa’s capabilities and make the digital assistant more conversational. The company says you’ll now be able to give Alexa very complex, multistep commands, and restart conversations without having to repeat a wake word. You can have Alexa generate stories and poems, and tell it to refine the answers it gives you. (For instance, you could ask for cookie recipes, and then instruct Alexa to narrow the list to nut-free recipes.)
Generative AI technology underpins popular new chat tools like ChatGPT and Google Bard, but this is the first time it has been extensively built into a digital assistant. In a demo of Alexa’s new Let’s Chat mode, the responses had a slight delay but seemed faster than the responses Alexa gives today. A prerecorded video demo shows Alexa drafting complicated emails to friends inviting them to themed parties.
New Echo Hub With Map View
These generative AI features are also key to improving Alexa’s smart home abilities. You can not only give Alexa multiple smart home commands at once but also have it create routines with your voice that, for example, turn on the lights, brew a cup of coffee, and play the news every morning. In addition, the company says, you won’t need to remember just what you called a particular device or routine; you can instead use conversational language.
Photo: Amazon Photo: Amazon
Amazon says these new powers will really shine in the Echo Hub, $180, a new wall-mounted control panel for smart home devices.
This isn’t Amazon’s first wall-mounted Echo, but unlike the Echo Show 15’s focus on voice control, the Echo Hub has a user interface—and 8-inch screen—made for touch control.
In addition to displaying multiple security camera feeds at once, it has buttons for controlling security systems, lights, locks, thermostats, outlets, and more. And as its name suggests, the Echo Hub will work as a smart home hub for Matter, Thread, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Amazon Sidewalk devices. Finally, the Echo Hub will eventually have a new Map View that allows you to create a digital floor plan of your home that you can use to more easily find and control them. Map View is first coming to the Alexa smartphone app.
The company also showed off an updated Echo Show 8.
Ring and Blink Cameras
The company is also launching a handful of new home security cameras and accessories, including the Ring Stick Up Cam Pro, $180; Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera, $160; Blink Outdoor 4 Battery Extension Pack, $30; and a new wireless hub for Blink cameras called the Blink Sync Module Pro, $50.
Photo: Amazon Photo: Amazon
The new Ring camera offers radar-based motion detection and is available in battery-powered and plug-in versions, while the new Blink floodlight camera offers on-device person detection (with a subscription) and a claimed two-year battery life. The extension pack will supposedly double the Outdoor 4’s battery life to four years, and the new sync module will extend the wireless range of Blink cameras “beyond your home WiFi router.”
This isn’t about cameras, but speaking of WiFi, chances are, few of the devices in your home support WiFi 6 or WiFi 6e, updated standards for wireless networking that have come online in recent years, but Amazon is already moving ahead to WiFi 7 with a $600 Eero Max 7 mesh router. That’s $600 for just one unit. A two-pack will be $1,150, and a three-pack will cost—do you really want to know?—$1,700. Yes, WiFi 7 will support even more devices and more blindingly fast speeds than WiFi 6. Don’t worry about it for now.
Fire TV Streaming Devices, Soundbar
Amazon rolled out two new 4K Fire TV streaming players, which have the same model names as the players they replace. Both models support both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ HDR formats, plus Dolby Atmos audio.
Photo: Amazon Photo: Amazon
The Fire TV Stick 4K, priced at $50, has a 1.7-gigahertz processor, which the company claims is 30 percent more powerful than its predecessor, plus WiFi 6 wireless technology. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max, priced at $60, gets a faster 2.6GHz quad-core processor and double (16 gigabytes) the storage of the earlier model. The company claims it’s the first stick-style player to come with WiFi 6e. Both can be pre-ordered starting today.
All Fire TVs will get updates later this year that Amazon promises will provide a smarter, more conversational Alexa voice experience based on the company’s improved LLM (large language model) Alexa technology.
Amazon also has a new, fairly basic soundbar, simply called Fire TV Soundbar, which is compatible with all Amazon Fire TV devices (both TVs and streaming players). It’s a two-channel setup—there’s no separate center-channel speaker or wireless subwoofer—that includes DTS Virtual:X sound, which attempts to create an immersive 3D sound field from just the soundbar’s built-in speakers. It also includes Bluetooth for wirelessly streaming music from a phone, tablet, or other mobile device. It’s available starting today for $120.
Kids Speakers and Tablets
Amazon is launching updated smart speakers and tablets aimed at children, along with new services.
Its Echo Pop Kids smart speaker will come in two brand-licensey designs, Marvel’s Avengers and Disney Princess, and include six months of Amazon Kids+ for $50. And Amazon’s Fire HD 10 Kids (aimed at 3- to 7-year-olds) and Fire HD 10 Kids Pro (for kids up to age 12) have some improved hardware and come with 12 months of Amazon Kids+ content. The price for the two tablets is the same: $190. All those products are available for preorder and are expected to ship next month.
Amazon’s emphasis on generative AI extends to its services aimed at children. Explore with Alexa is a new feature coming to the Kids+ content service this fall that will encourage users to ask questions about animals and nature. The data the AI draws on is supposed to come exclusively from kid-safe sources, including the World Wildlife Fund and A-Z Animals, an online encyclopedia. The responses will be in child-friendly language composed on the fly.
Correction: An earlier version of this article, originally published Sept. 20. 2023, misstated the price of the Eero Max 7 mesh router. It starts at $600.
