Indoor Drone, Refreshed Echo Devices Stand Out in Amazon Event
Ring security for the car, voice calling via Fire TV, beefed up Echo devices and cloud gaming headlined Amazon’s hardware announcements in a livestreamed event Thursday. Ring also announced a $249 indoor drone, with an autonomous camera “that will automatically fly to predetermined areas of the home.” The Ring Always Home Cam records only when in flight and is “loud enough so you hear when it’s in motion,” said Ring President Leila Rouhi.
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The Ring lineup for vehicles is due next year, including a car alarm ($59) that plugs into a car’s onboard diagnostics port and operates on the Sidewalk neighborhood network (see 2009210032). The alarm will alert users when it detects an intrusion, tow or impact. The alarm works with other Ring devices, including the $199 Car Cam, and Alexa to trigger lights, cameras and sirens. If a driver is pulled over while driving, she can tell Alexa to begin recording; footage will be “securely stored,” and she can contact a loved one. Emergency Crash Assist automatically requests help from first responders in a serious crash.
Ring Car Connect, available to carmakers Thursday, is an application programming interface for customers to receive mobile alerts for detected events, watch recorded vehicle video footage and see whether the car is locked. Tesla models are the first compatible vehicles for the $199 plug-in device.
For home, a collaboration with Logitech will allow consumers to connect a Logitech USB webcam with an Amazon Fire TV Cube to enable two-way video calling using Alexa on TV. Support for Zoom will follow. The TV’s large screen and high resolution will bring users closer for work calls, study groups and social video chats, said Marc Whitten, vice president-devices and services.
The latest Fire TV stick, $39, adds HDR and Dolby Atmos support. A lite version, $29, has HDR and a voice remote. The new sticks are 50% more powerful than the previous generation, using 50% less power, said Whitten. The Fire TV Stick 4K remains.
The Echo Show got an update, a rotating screen that uses audio beamforming and computer vision, “processed locally and securely” on neural processors, to keep the screen in view as users move around, said Dave Limp, senior vice president-devices and services. Sound localization and computer vision models triangulate in and rotate the screen to face the speaker, Limp said. The camera pans and zooms to keep subjects centered. Addressing privacy and security, Limp said, “Alexa is not identifying a specific person, just a human shape." Processing happens "on-device.” The Echo Show 10 comes with a camera shutter users can engage to turn off motion; Alexa can also turn off motion.
An Alexa Guard Plus service ($5 a month) sends a smart alert when users are away if the camera detects a person in the home. In away mode, Echo Show periodically pans around the room to see if anyone is in its field of view, Limp said.
The company added to the Show group calling, effects for video calls and Amazon Chime, a service for enterprises to migrate their telephony workloads to Amazon Web Services. Netflix streaming is coming to the Show; later this year users will be able to ask Alexa to call up a Netflix movie.
Amazon is joining the gaming service fray, announcing Luna+ ($5.99 monthly early access), a cloud-based service for computers and mobile devices, and an Alexa-enabled Luna controller for $49. Gamers will see Twitch streams.
An Echo smart speaker ($99) integrates a smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy and Amazon Sidewalk. The new Echo has a 3-inch woofer, dual-firing tweeters and Dolby processing for stereo sound, said Miriam Daniel, vice president-Amazon Devices. Similar to Echo Studio, Echo will automatically sense the acoustics of a room to tune audio playback.