After being aggressively rumoured and leaked for the past couple of weeks, Amazon’s latest addition to its Alexa powered home devices is now official. Called the “Echo Show”, the device comes with a 7-inch touchscreen that the digital assistant can utilize for broadcasting various streams such as video calls, lyrics and a whole lot more.
The Amazon Echo Show costs $229.99 and apart from the display, comes with all the standard features you’d expect from an Echo product. Shipping commences from next month’s 28th, however, you can preorder it today as well. It’s, though, currently limited to the US. You can also buy two and save a sum of 100 dollars.
As far as the hardware is concerned, the Echo Show is equipped with a 5MP camera for calls, an eight-microphone array, runs on Intel’s Atom x5-Z8350 processor and features Dual 2 inch stereo speakers. The device is as of now, compatible with a range of other home products such as security cameras, baby monitors, and more. Furthermore, you can ask Alexa to pull out almost any kind of data including shopping lists, Uber arrival time, Youtube clips or weather forecasts and display them on the screen. It is quite hefty, weighing at nearly 1.1 kilos.
Amazon currently controls roughly 70 percent (well ahead of Google Home’s 23.8 percent) smart home devices and adding a relatively more versatile product in the lineup will certainly invite more customers. However, though, the product category has concurrently raised several privacy issues and now along with a constant set of listening microphones, there’s a camera as well.