Amazon has today launched a new smart speaker, the Amazon Echo Portable Input, in India. The Echo Input Portable joins the existing Echo Input, announced earlier this year, with the a few handy features such as hands-free access to Alexa, up to 10 hours of playback time on a single charge, and 360-degree audio, along with far-field voice recognition.
The Echo Input Portable builds upon the existing Echo Input device and offers a better battery life and built-in speakers. It includes physical buttons for controlling volume, a power button to turn on/off the device, and a mute button to disconnect the microphones. Besides this, there is a micro-USB port on the device for charging, a 4-LED battery indicator to provide the current battery status, built-in speakers, and a 4800mAh battery that the company claims to offer up to 10 hours of playback and 11 hours of standby time. The device uses dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) for connectivity and also supports Bluetooth A2DP profile.
Like any other Echo device, the Echo Input Portable can be used to get hands-free access to Alexa to perform a wide range of operations using more than 30,000 Alexa skills, such as play music, increase volume, get weather alerts, listen to the latest news updates, etc all using voice commands. It offers users the ability to stream music from Amazon Prime Music, Apple Music, JioSaavn, and Gaana by simply asking the assistant to play their favorite song, artist, or genre. And also allows them to connect their mobile phones using Bluetooth and stream their favorite music. Besides this, Echo Input Portable also comes with Philips, Wipro, Syska, and TP-Link compatibility, which allows users to control their smart home devices using voice commands.
Amazon Echo Input Portable: Pricing and Availability
The Amazon Echo Input Portable comes in Black color and is priced at Rs 4999. It is currently available for order on Amazon.in and will ship starting December 18.