Amazon has announced, but not yet released, a Siri-like device for your living room or kitchen. It’s called Amazon Echo.
Echo plugs into the wall and your house wifi. Configuration is via an app or browser:
Connect to your home network with a simple setup, guided by the free companion app on Fire OS and Android, plus desktop and iOS browsers.
Interesting that there’s not an iOS app. Clearly, Amazon has the resources to build one. This feels like a tactic, though a bit ham-fisted.
Echo is always on, much like “Hey Siri” or “OK Google”, always listening for its name, a name that you get to choose. Like Siri, you can ask Echo questions or give it commands, as long as they fit into its knowledge domain. Watch the video below to get a sense of how broad that domain really is. And, I suspect, that domain will continue to grow over time.
I think Amazon will sell a ton of these. Why? Because they are filling a niche that is completely unserved right now. The butler robot is coming, but it is not here yet. And your cell phone is in your pocket and requires some amount of effort to access. Like that butler robot, Echo will be forever waiting for your command, waiting to serve you up some cloud-based information, assist you with a reminder, or help make an Amazon purchase, perhaps.
One key here is that Echo does not require a subscription fee. If you do not have a Siri-like capability on your cell phone, this adds that capability, and in a form that works well in your home.
I wonder if Echo will be able to access an existing reminder/calendar system? Given the lack of an iOS setup app, is it fair to assume that any bridge to your personal calendar will be limited to Android? Time will tell on this one.
I see this as a missing piece in the move toward home automation. This seems like a natural front end for Apple HomeKit. What Siri is no doubt headed for, but without having to pull my phone out of my pocket. The tiny time savings of not having to pull your phone out of your pocket might seem like a foolish thing on which to base a business strategy, but I do think it will work. Until it gets commoditized and everyone is selling one.
A potential privacy disaster.
Amazon will NOT sell a ton of these.
I really wish ‘Hey Siri’ functionality could be enabled without being plugged in. I know it probably would kill the battery in my 5s, but here’s hoping there’s a dedicated super-efficient chip in the 6s (think something like the motion coprocessor) that enables it full-time.
if Amazon quickly publishes and supports a homekit like API and supports 3rd party hw vendors, then yes, it could do well.
“I think Amazon will sell a ton of these.”
I think Amazon will NOT sell a ton of these. A question worth to ponder from Gruber: “How will anyone get in the habit of using this instead of Siri or Google Now when they can only use it in one room?”
I don’t really see the long term appeal of voice services like this. They are slow and very much hit or miss in terms of use (though they should continue to improve). Having such a service available in a single room in a house seems like an odd sell. How often would you realistically use it?
I think there will be a point very quickly where Amazon will sell them for less than the ~$200. $99 is an ok price point for all, less would be better. I would think that in time you’re going to have people with more than one of these per home/house etc. Or one base with wireless mic/speakers everywhere in the house. This is going to eventually be everywhere, improving rapidly.
There is zero chance that I’m letting someone continually listen in to my home. I might do this with Apple since I’m directly their customer and they make money by selling me hardware and software so our interests are somewhat aligned. But Amazon, a retailer? Or Google, an advertising company? No way. Both of those industries have incentives to know about my habits so they can sell me other things.
Others have pointed out the one room limitation. To me, the place for voice commands is on a wearable which, presuming you actually wear the thing, is with you as you move about the house. Alternatively, cheap microphones you put in the other rooms which talk to a central unit… but now we’re talking a different order of cost and complexity.
Not in my house! Amazon does not get to listen in to my private conversations, rants, and mumbling to myself.
This isolated device that tells the time and spells words is a tech demonstration of the concept. I can see Apple (or Google) creating something useful though.
Here’s the integrated device that will someday exist: If I say “Add …. to calendar,” it should add it to my iCloud calendar. If I say remind me that…, it should add it to my reminders app. If I say, send a text to my wife that…, it should figure out who’s talking, then send a message from me to my wife. If I say turn off the lights everywhere but this room, it should do that. If I say, add to shopping list, it should sync with my AnyList app (registered with iOS as a shopping list app) and add that item to the list. And so on.
Somebody doesn’t use both hands doing something and need to look something up at the same time.
Yeah, I don’t get it. If you already have your phone that does this, who is going to drop 200 bucks on a standalone device.
not really seeing this. another cloud silo platform? that its amazon doesnt hold enough payout for anyone i know.
“I think Amazon will sell a ton of these.” We’ll never know because Amazon will never release sales numbers.
I’m sure it’s as well engineered as a Segway. And it will sell about the same too.
A device that listens to everything in my home 24/7 and sends it to some who-knows-what cloud where very spoken word gets parsed. What the HELL…! No! Hey big Brother. Name it “Dave”. Some day some supersmart (paranoic) NSA Computer suckin´my data decides to turn on all gas-valves in my kitchen via smarthome interface because some algorithm itentified me as a “public enemy”.
The only guys I would allow this is Apple – but not that Google/Facebook/Amazon bunch.
That’s what Siri access on an Apple Watch is for, and it’s much, much more personal.
If Amazon Echo has access to calendars, contact lists, reminders, music playlists, shopping lists, etc. (and several of these are shown in the video), which person’s info, out of everyone in the household, is it accessing? Does Amazon expect everyone in the household to share a single shopping list, set of playlists (with multiple conflicting names, like “Dance Mix”), contacts, calendar, etc.?
Yep, an Apple Watch starts at $350 vs $200 for this (or $99 for Amazon Prime subscribers), but you get a lot more for that extra $150+/$250+.
How many people are going to buy this who haven’t already subscribed to Amazon Prime, though, seriously?
I’m sure Amazon and gadget-happy techies see this as “like the ship’s computer from Star Trek!,” but I’ll bet a huge number of other people see it more as a step towards the creepy privacy invading society in Minority Report.
This is an interesting idea but that video was balls to the wall boring and annoying.
The idea is that even your 4 year old could learn how to use this so you don’t have to hand him your $600 smart phone. It might also be good for older folks, especially if it could be tied into phone systems etc. It would be the new ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’.
There you raise an interesting question. Yes it is ‘listening’ but what is it doing when its not prompted to reply. We would need a full analysis of whether it is transmitting everything picked up to somewhere or if it’s not ‘actively’ listening until you say the preset word and then what happens to what you say at that point. I mean even Siri sends what we say to Apple when we ask her for something or dictate to her. Is that the same with Hey Siri or is she giving up our every utterance.
Oh and you would be naming it HAL. Dave was the human. As in “I can’t let you do that Dave”
You have more good questions (along with Jorg’s privacy one) that Amazon will likely need to address before this could take off.
Whose info and if more than one person how will it, if it does, tell folks apart
Will this lose out to the notion of a portable and seamless system. That’s one thing I find appealing about the system of games on the Apple TV being via airplay and not on the device. I like that I can start a game at home and continue on the road. The Apple Watch is a parallel notion.
That said I wouldn’t mind if Apple had a little box or integration with Apple TV and/or computer with their system so if my Apple Watch has died and is charging and by some weird chance my phone is in the other room I have ‘continuity’ and options.
Note that it’s also a “pretty nice speaker unit”, so it also replaces, to an extent, a $100-200 Bluetooth speaker.
I’m not super sanguine on it’s chances, but it IS more than “just standalone Siri”.
I can think of an immediate use for it. My 5 kids are homeschooled & my wife hates computers AND smartphones; so she will often compel one of the teenagers to do her research for her. The downside is that my wife will have to mute the device whenever testing the young ones on their spelling! Plus, I won’t have to compete with the teenagers for streaming music on the Roku! “Just take echo into your room, I’m watching TV!”
“& my wife hates computers AND smartphones;”
Sounds like a very niche case.
Agreed. Unless Amazon realizes they can sell a ton of these things to Luddites and technophobes. In which case we’re all waiting for the first big consumer-data breach.
If Amazon thinks it can gain traction with this, I’m guessing they’ll stick with it until they can price it attractively enough for enough consumers to overlook the eavesdropping factor.
“Alexa, can you help me fix my mushmouth consonant articulation?”
Your children are being homeschooled by someone who hates computers and smartphones? Good luck with that.
It’s been working so far. She’s not a luddite, she just hates the interface. A voice based interface might just be exactly what works for her.
Maybe, time will tell.
Yeah, the one thing I always dream of is an Amazon device in my home that is always listening to everything and uploading to the cloud. Fucking brilliant.
This will be a massive bomb, just like Amazon’s other hardware products. It’s also unreal how painfully awkward Amazon’s ads are. I wanted to punch everyone in that hilariously fake family in the face.
I very much doubt this thing will be of any kind of use when doing real research. It will answer the “who is barack Obama” questions, but good luck with more in depth stuff. And yes, your case is insanely niche.
Yep. The deal breaker with this is that it is not part of any ecosystem. What makes something like Siri useful is that it can pull and push data from your calendar, email, texts, apps, etc. I can see Apple releasing a standalone device like this in the future, that serves as a hands free voice interface to your phone.
Yeah, that dad seems like a fucking idiot. “Echo, raise my kids for me”.
your phone displays the answer most of the time on the screen this just tells you the answer by voice. This is also in line with the price if most bluetooth speakers out now anyway but it does more so why would you buy one that does less?