Amazon Echo – Compu-Toy or Internet Appliance?
Amazon has been promoting its new Echo device on the Amazon site. Visitors are treated to a multi-minute video of a happy family, bearded, post-hipster Dad and all, receiving the Echo and discovering all of the ways the new piece of tech can enhance their lives. Thankfully, no fights break out toward the end of the video over who’s commanding the thing. So what is it?
The Amazon Echo is a kind of internet input – output device. Driven by voice commands a la “Ok Google”, the device can parse and respond to questions, find music and other audio media to stream and provide input to apps remotely. The example given in the video was of the titular mother adding wrapping paper to a shopping list by voice with Echo doing text recognition on what she said and updating a list app which could then be accessed on a phone, tablet or computer.
Will Echo become a family member across America? Amazon could use a breakthrough product after the massive, recently-announced loss but whether this is it or is another spoke in their strategy to continually engage their user base remains to be seen.
Amazon’s teasing continues by offering the Echo ‘by invitation only.’ We’ve got ours – will you?