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Amazon hardware event 2020: Everything the company announced today
The 2020 Amazon hardware event just concluded, and the company announced new versions of many of its popular products. There’s a lot to get through, so let’s dive right in!
New Amazon Echo
The new Amazon Echo is here, with a completely new design. It’s spherical this time and comes with a 3-inch subwoofer and dual-firing tweeters, which should help it sound better than last year’s model. It can also sense the space around it to fine-tune its sound output for its environment.
The new Echo is also a smart home hub and works with Zigbee, Bluetooth, and Amazon Sidewalk.
You can pre-order the new Echo for $99.99 starting today. In India, the new Amazon Echo is priced at Rs. 9,999. It will be available later this year.
New Amazon Echo Dot and Echo Dot Kids
Amazon has also wildly revamped its iconic Echo Dot for 2020. During the Amazon hardware event, the company showed off a new spherical design for the mini smart speaker. It also showed off a few variations on the main look: an Echo Dot with Clock as well as an Echo Dot for kids.
Regardless of which design you go with, the 2020 Echo Dot has a new AZ1 Neural Edge processor for better speech recognition. It also can handle contextual conversations now, which should make talking to Alexa through the dot more natural.
As mentioned before, Amazon has also introduced a new Echo Dot kids edition. These come in the form of a tiger and a panda and come with a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids Plus. It will be available for $59.99.
The new Echo Dots are available for pre-order today and will ship “later this year.” The new Echo Dot and Echo Dot with clock are also available for pre-order in India and are priced at Rs. 4,499 and Rs. 5,499 respectively. The smart speakers start shipping October 26.
Eero 6 and Eero Pro 6
As we expected, Amazon updated its popular mesh Wi-Fi system to the latest standard, Wi-Fi 6. That update also slightly changed the name of the product to the Eero 6 and Eero 6 Pro. This should offer faster and more stable internet throughout your home. They’ll cost $129 and $229 respectively.
Ring Car Alarm, Ring Car Cam, and Ring Car Connect
If you don’t have a fancy alarm system in your car, you can now add one easily. The Ring Car Alarm plugs into your OBD port and will push alerts to your phone should it detect any movement inside the vehicle. This should help you keep an eye on things and give you the leg up should someone try to mess with your car.
Working in tandem with this is a new dashcam called the Ring Car Cam. Like other dashcams on the market, it will give you a video feed of your car which can protect you from lawsuits and help in any insurance claims you might have in the future.
The Car Alarm will cost $60, and the Car Cam will cost $200.
Amazon is also introducing a partnership with Tesla to bring a feature called Ring Car Connect. This allows your car to communicate with your phone natively to relay information from the car alarm and cameras. Amazon says it is planning to work with more automakers, but it will come to Teslas first, and very soon.
Ring Always Home Cam
This might be one of the more outlandish products Amazon has produced. The Ring Always Home Cam is literally a tiny drone that flies around your house and pushes a video feed to your phone. It only works indoors but it has a 1080p camera. It doesn’t record while it’s docked, so it should make privacy-aware users a little more comfortable.
This will cost you $249 when it goes on sale on October 8.
Amazon Echo Show 10
Amazon’s popular Echo Show smart display finally gets a big upgrade in both design and specs. The new 10-inch display not only has a 13MP camera built-in, but can pivot to follow you during video chats or scan your home for security. This should help Amazon compete better with Google’s Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max.
The Echo Show 10 will cost $250. It’s listed on Amazon as “coming soon,” so we’re not sure when it will land.
Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Remote
At the 2020 Amazon hardware event, the company tweaked one of its most popular products, the Amazon Fire TV Stick. It comes with a new version of the Alexa-powered remote so you can issue voice commands and supports both HDR video as well as Dolby Atmos. The upcoming Google Chromecast with Google TV built-in should have a similar feature, albeit using Google Assistant instead of Alexa.
There’s also a new Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite. It also comes with an Alexa-powered voice remote, but the specs are a bit weaker.
The new Fire TV Stick will cost $40 and the Lite variant will cost $30. Both will be out later this year. The two streaming sticks are also available for pre-order in India at a price of Rs. 3,999 and Rs. 2,999 respectively. Both Fire TV sticks start shipping October 15.
Amazon Luna game streaming service
Amazon saved the most significant announcement for last. To help it compete with Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud, Amazon is launching a new game streaming service called Luna. As with competitor products, it will allow you to stream console games to most of the devices you already own.
The controller will cost $49.99, and it will cost $6 per month to have access to the Luna channel, where you’ll find a selection of games that Amazon has partnered with for the service. For more premium titles, you’ll need to subscribe to additional channels for an added fee, just like on cable TV. Amazon says it is partnering with Ubisoft to develop the Ubisoft channel, where you’ll be able to play AAA games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Amazon has not announced the pricing of other channels, but we’re hoping to know more soon.