Amazon announced new devices and services that bring ambient intelligence to life. Ambient intelligence unlocks new experiences for customers—it enables devices and services to work seamlessly together, offering more than any one product could.
On the hardware side Amazon announces the Echo Show 15 and Echo Buds that is most interesting at this point. There are more hardware announcements coming around the Astro Robot coming.
Echo Show 15
The latest and largest addition to the Echo Show family, the Echo Show 15 is designed to be the digital heart of your home.
Designed to be mounted on a wall or placed on a counter in either portrait or landscape orientation, the 15.6 inch, 1080p Full HD display Echo Show 15 is designed to help you stay organised, connected and entertained. It is built with the next-generation Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor, a redesigned home screen with more customisation options, new personalisation features with visual ID, and all-new Alexa experiences.
Patrick Walker, Country Manager for Amazon Devices, ANZ says: “Echo Show 15 brings everything that makes your household tick into one place. With a redesigned home screen that acts as your smart home control hub, you can customise Echo Show 15 to see your connected devices, shared household calendar, manage to-do lists and reminders, and even find meal inspiration. Australians also love the entertainment features that Echo Show devices enable, and we’re sure this new framed form factor will help bring together home organisation, smart home control and entertainment in new ways.”
“Today, families juggle multiple competing priorities—what time to drop the kids off at soccer practice, what to make for dinner, or when to schedule the next appointment—the list goes on and on. With Echo Show 15, Alexa can help,” said Kate Burleigh, Country Manager for Amazon Alexa, ANZ. “Our continued innovation across Alexa and Amazon devices is to always be there when you need it, but fade away quietly when you don’t. With visual ID identifying custom home screen and widget preferences across a household, Alexa’s performance has never felt more personal.”
With customisable Alexa widgets, Echo Show 15 brings together everything families need on its beautiful 15.6-inch Full HD screen. To complement Echo Show 15’s ambient rotating content, you can customise your home screen using a new widgets gallery, which lets you choose and add the information most useful to you. Alexa widgets continually refresh to stay up to date, so you always have the latest information, and you can easily rearrange them to suit your needs and preferences.
Personalise Your Experience with Visual ID
With the new visual ID feature, Alexa can recognise you and personalise the on-screen information on Echo Show 15. After enrolling in visual ID, if you walk in front of Echo Show 15, Alexa will recognise you and the screen will automatically update to show you a custom greeting, your reminders, calendar events, recently played music, or notes from others in your home.
Organise Your Household
With Echo Show 15, you can quickly view and update your household’s shared calendar, add or remove items from your shopping list, reorder favourite items, check your to-do list, and more. And now, with Echo Show 15 in your kitchen, it’s easy to decide what to eat in the moment. From on-demand recipe recommendations and step-by-step guides from taste.com.au, through to voice activated orders for your favourite pizza at Domino’s!
Stay Connected to Your Home and Others
Staying connected means seamlessly managing the devices and services that power your home. A smart home favourites widget lets you view and control your most-used compatible smart home devices with just a tap. The large screen means you can use picture-in-picture viewing to follow a recipe, while also keeping an eye on the nursery via a connected camera. Echo Show 15 also helps you stay connected with loved ones inside and outside the home. With the sticky notes widget, you can leave a note about dinner time for family members, or a reminder to take the dog for a walk. Plus, with visual ID you can send a note directly to a specific family member, which will only show up when Alexa recognises them in front of the device. With its 15.6-inch screen and 5-megapixel camera, Echo Show 15 is also great for video calls, or to Drop In on a loved one inside or outside of your house.
Enjoy the Entertainment You Love
With its large screen and support for 1080p video streaming, Echo Show 15 can also double as your kitchen TV. Just ask Alexa to watch movies and TV shows from Prime Video or Netflix. You can also ask Alexa to play music, your favourite podcaster read your Audible book. Echo Show 15 can also seamlessly blend into your décor by displaying full-screen pictures from Amazon Photos or alternating visuals from pre-loaded art, nature, seasonal, or travel galleries.
Powered By the All New, Next-Gen AZ2 Processor
Echo Show 15 is powered by the next-generation Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor, a machine learning (ML) inference engine with a quad-core scalable architecture. The AZ2 architecture is custom designed by Amazon—enabling computer vision (CV) algorithms that once required the computer power of the cloud to be processed entirely on the edge. What this means is that Echo Show 15is able to recognise a person enrolled in visual ID and will be able to process their images right on the device.
Privacy and Accessibility
Echo Show 15 is designed with privacy in mind; it has microphone and camera controls, the ability to view and delete your voice recordings, and a built-in shutter to cover the camera. Visual ID is optional and requires explicit enrolment, and you can delete your visual ID profile at any time through the on-device settings or the Alexa app. To learn more about the features providing transparency and control over your Alexa experience, visit the Alexa Privacy Hub: http://www.amazon.com.au/alexaprivacy. In addition, Echo Show 15 offers accessibility features that benefit all customers, including the ability to interact with Alexa using touch instead of voice, to see captions for Alexa’s responses on the device screen, and more.
Pricing and Availability
Echo Show 15 will be available in Australia for AU$399.00 RRP in 2022. Stand will be sold separately.
Echo Buds
Amazon launches the second gen Echo Buds, featuring an all-new design, premium audio architecture for crisp, balanced sound, custom-designed Active Noise Cancellation technology and wireless charging capabilities.
The all-new Echo Buds are launching for the first time in Australia, introducing a new way to experience and use Alexa on the go.
“With Active Noise Cancellation technology and high-performance drivers for dynamic audio, the Echo Buds deliver sound quality that will make your favourite song, playlist or podcast feel and sound more immersive than ever,” said Patrick Walker, Country Manager for Amazon Devices, ANZ. “With IPX4 water protection and a choice of earphone attachments to help the Buds fit comfortably, Echo Buds are for an active life both at home, and in the great outdoors.”
Adding to the Echo Buds’ premium audio performance is Alexa; allowing users to take the digital assistant out in the real world to help them stay organized and entertained.
“With Alexa built in, Echo Buds give users the ability to use voice commands to enable a variety of fun and practical tasks on the go,” added Kate Burleigh, Country Manager for Amazon Alexa, ANZ. “Whether its remembering to add an item to your to-do list while on your morning run, or asking Alexa for a meditation podcast to start the day, Alexa gives users the control to decide where they need support.”
Customisable Fit for All-Day Comfort
The all-new Echo Buds are compact, lightweight, IPX4-rated to withstand sweat; and designed to be comfortable enough for all-day wear. A compact nozzle design ensures comfort and built-in vents reduce ear pressure during use, making Echo Buds feel natural in your ear—perfect for long periods of use during the day. With four ear tip sizes and two wing tip sizes, you can tailor the fit to what’s most comfortable for you and during set-up, the easy Ear Tip Fit Test will confirm if you have a proper seal—so they feel great and sound even better.
Dynamic Audio Experience featuring new Active Noise Cancellation
Built with a high-performance driver in each earbud, Echo Buds deliver crisp, balanced sound with extended dynamic range—so you get the most out of your music, regardless of genre. The premium speakers are optimised for fidelity in bass and treble, which reduces distortion during media playback, delivering vibrant melodies and clear spoken word.
Featuring Amazon’s new Active Noise Cancellation technology, the all-new Echo Buds cancel twice as much noise compared to the first generation, making them ideal for traveling or if you need peace and quiet at home. The technology uses the inner and outer microphones to intelligently estimate sound pressure in your eardrum—which directly correlates to how you hear sound around you—to generate the inverse of that signal and cancel out unwanted noise, helping you stay immersed in your audio.
To turn on Active Noise Cancellation, simply press and hold either earbud or just say, “Alexa, noise cancellation on.” When you want to hear what’s going on around you, enable Passthrough Mode with a press and hold on either earbud or by saying, “Alexa, Passthrough on.” With Passthrough Mode on, you can easily adjust the amount of ambient sound you hear through the device settings in the Alexa app.
Easy Access to All of Your Entertainment Options
Echo Buds are one of the easiest ways to access all of the content you know and love from Alexa, from anywhere. Just ask to listen to your favourite Audible audiobook, find your next favourite artist on Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and more. You can also ask Alexa to play music for a set amount of time. When you want to take a short walk to soak up the sun, simply say, “Alexa, play relaxing music for 15 minutes.” When the tunes stop, it’s your cue to head home.
Easily Manage Your Day
With Echo Buds, Alexa helps you get more done whether you are at home or on-the-go. Just ask to set a reminder to stretch for a few minutes every hour, check your calendar, add laundry detergent to your shopping list, or catch up with a friend by simply saying, “Alexa, call Sara.” The onboard microphones in each earbud are optimised to capture lower frequencies compared to the prior generation, so not only is Alexa able to hear you better, but call quality is also improved. And if you misplace your Echo Buds before a conference call, simply say, “Alexa, find my buds” to another Alexa-enabled device—or press a button in your device settings via the Alexa app—and, if your Echo Buds are nearby, you’ll hear an audible chime!
Power Up for Work or Play
Echo Buds offer up to five hours of music playback on a single charge with Active Noise Cancellation and hands-free access to Alexa, and the compact case provides two additional charges for a total of up to 15 hours of music playback. If you’re in a hurry, a 15-minute quick charge will give you up to two hours of music playback. To check your battery status while wearing Echo Buds, simply say, “Alexa, what’s my battery level?” Or, open the case while your Echo Buds are inside and the new LED lights in front of each earbud will show the battery status. Echo Buds canbe charged via USB-C or a Qi-certified wireless charging pad.
Echo Buds connect to Alexa through the Alexa app on your mobile device and use your existing device data plan to access features such as music, calling, and more. They are built with multiple layers of privacy protections and controls, including the ability to mute the mics with the Alexa app or through the customisable onboard tap controls. You can also set the onboard tap controls to access your native voice services—Siri or Google Assistant–if that is your preference.
Pricing and Availability
The all-new Echo Buds come in Black and are available for pre-order today on amazon.com.au and will begin shipping to customers across Australia from October 27. Pricing for Echo Buds will be AU $169 RRP for the USB-C wired charging option, or AU$199 RRP for wireless charging.
On the software side, there are new Alexa features and Smart services.
New Alexa Features
Amazon introduces several new Alexa features to help you stay organised and entertained—and to give you some extra peace of mind.
Household calendar: This new calendar widget makes it easier to view and manage your family’s schedule. Just tap the screen or ask Alexa to add events or appointments; then, your household can see the family’s daily schedule at a glance. Using a new feature called visual ID, you can teach your device to recognise you when you step in front of your Echo Show device’s camera, and then show you a personalised view of your daily events and reminders.
Sticky notes: This new feature will soon allow you to create and display digital sticky notes on your Echo Show screen. Ask Alexa to save a note about where you’ve stored your family’s camping gear or what temperature dinner needs to be reheated at. You can also create and assign notes to individuals in your household to remind them of something or just to brighten their day.
New Smart Services
Amazon also introduced new features to the Ring range of products to create a simpler, more useful smart home experience and deliver peace of mind.
Custom Event Alerts: Refined, computer vision-based custom smart alerts that do everything from letting customers know when a package arrives, to whether the garage door is open on eligible devices.
