Does Amazon need its own Alexa smartphone? Watch Now At a surprise event in Seattle, Amazon announced updates to a few Echo-branded devices and unveiled what seems like a dozen entirely new Alexa products. From a new microwave to a wall clock (not joking), Amazon introduced basically everything but the kitchen sink during its event. Almost all these new devices come with built-in Alexa voice control, or they are designed to work with both existing and new Echo products. Also: Alexa's next move: Amazon unwraps its latest voice-controlled devices Confused about the myriad of announcements? No worries. We've delved into all the details and have rounded up what matters most: Prices, features, and release dates. Enjoy! Updated Amazon Echo Dot (2018) The updates include the voice-controlled Echo Dot, Echo Show, and Echo Plus, all three of which now come with sound improvements, though the new Echo Dot also comes with a redesign. The original, hockey puck-sized model launched in 2016 as a simple way to add Alexa to external speakers. But it had a tinny speaker hardly suitable for proper music playback. The new one not only looks different but is supposed to provide a more "full sound," though you can still pump tunes via your own speakers over Bluetooth or with a 3.5 mm audio cable. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO DOT (2018): It costs $49.99 in the US. It is available to pre-order on Amazon. It officially launches Oct. 11. Updated Amazon Echo Show (2018) As for the new Echo Show, it's being marketed by Amazon as "all-new" -- complete with "new speakers," a "new 10-inch HD screen," and a "new fabric design." Apart from the new cloth look, it primarily comes with more powerful stereo sound, thanks to dual 2-inch drivers, a passive bass radiator, and Dolby processing. It also has eight microphones with far-field technology, which means Alexa should be able to hear you even while music is playing, according to Amazon. Also: How to pick the right Amazon Echo device CNET The new model is compatible with Zigbee devices and doesn't need a separate hub. Amazon noted you can use it to view security camera feeds with two-way audio and get notifications (this this feature will be "coming soon"). The Alexa app is even adding Skype support. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO SHOW (2018): It costs $229.99 in the US. It is available to pre-order on Amazon and officially launches Oct. 11. Updated Amazon Echo Plus (2018) The last product update Amazon rolled out concerns the Echo Plus, which, like the others, is supposed to bring an improved sound experience. It has more premium speakers that are "powered by Dolby play 360-degree audio with crisp vocals and dynamic bass response," Amazon said. You can also adjust the speaker's equaliser settings within the Alexa app. Also: Amazon Alexa: Cheat sheet TechRepublic The new Echo Plus modelfurther sports a built-in temperature sensor, as well as a built-in Zigbee hub, making it easier to set up and voice control your compatible Zigbee smart home devices, such as smart lights and plugs, without a separate hub. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO PLUS (2018): It costs $149.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches Oct. 11. Updated Ring Stick Up Cam (2018) Amazon owns security camera company Ring, so it announced a new version of the Ring Stick Up Cam. There are two new versions, technically, a wired model and a battery-powered one. The wired version has an Ethernet port and will be available in black and white. Both can work either indoors or outside, as they have an IPX5 waterproof rating, and they record 1080p video. BUY THE NEW RING STICK UP CAM (2018): It costs $179.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches on Oct. 18. New Amazon Echo Input In terms of new devices, the new Echo Input can plug it into any existing speaker to turn it into an Echo. It's like an Echo Dot with far-field microphones and no speaker. You can plug it into or pair with another speaker in order to add Alexa intelligence to your home audio equipment. It's similar to Google's Chromecast Audio, but this has mics and Alexa. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO INPUT: It will cost $34.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy later this year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon, New Amazon Echo Sub Amazon has announced an all-new, cloth-covered Echo Sub. It has a 6-inch, down-firing woofer that delivers 100W deep bass sound. You use the Alexa app to pair it to an Echo or Echo Plus (sold separately) to achieve more "dynamic music that fills the room," or a left/right stereo sound experience. It's supposed to be simple to set up and use, too. Just plug it in, open the Alexa app, wirelessly connect to your Echo devices, and control your music by voice. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO SUB: It costs $129.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches Oct. 11. New Amazon Echo Link Amp and Echo Link Amazon announced two more audio products: the Echo Link Amp, which will connect to a receiver or an amplifier, and the Echo Link, which enables your Echo to pipe music to your stereo system. These are stereo amplifiers with multiple audio ins and audio outs and support Ethernet and coaxial cables, and the Link Amp features a built-in 60 watt dual-channel amplifier. They'll work with other Echo devices but do not have built-in Alexa voice capabilities. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO LINK AMP: It will cost $299.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy early next year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon. It will cost $299.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy early next year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO LINK: It will cost $199.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy early next year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon. New Amazon Smart Plug Amazon also rolled out the all-new Amazon Smart Plug, which adds Alexa voice control to any electrical socket. It primarily lets you schedule times to turn appliances on and off, use Alexa for voice control, and control devices when you're away from home. Just plug it in, head into the Alexa app, add your new Smart Plug, and start using Alexa voice commands -- no smart home hub required. You can also set up routines and schedules through the Alexa App. BUY THE NEW AMAZON SMART PLUG: It costs $24.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches Oct. 11. New Amazon Echo Wall Clock Not done yet, Amazon has a new Echo accessory that works with Alexa-enabled devices to display timers you've set with Alexa. The new Amazon Echo Wall Clock has no mics, but it does have a ring of LEDs that show your active timers. You'll see an LED for how long a timer is set, and if you add a second timer, and you'll see a second LED. It will auto-change the time for Daylight Savings Time, as well. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO WALL CLOCK: It costs $29.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy later this year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon. New AmazonBasics Microwave Just when you thought Amazon was finished, it brings out a microwave with built-in Alexa and an integrated Dash replenishment service. That's right. You can order a replenishment, such as popcorn, with the "built-in Ask Alexa button". You can also control the company's new microwave using voice commands, naturally. So, if you say, "Alexa, one potato," it'll turn on with a timer. You can then ask Alexa to add more time or stop, all by voice. BUY THE NEW AMAZONBASICS MICROWAVE: It costs $59.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches Nov. 14. New FireTV Recast FireTV Recast is a DVR device that can stream shows from an antenna to your home, so you can watch over-the-air television. You just place the box in your home, and you can start streaming on your Echo Show, Echo Spot, Amazon Fire TV, or on mobile. You can watch local news and channels. It'll also send live TV recording to your Echo Show (four shows at a time, for streaming on multiple devices). You can delete or schedule recordings with Alexa voice commands. BUY THE NEW AMAZON FIRETV RECAST: It costs $229.99 in the US. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. It officially launches Nov. 14. New Echo Auto Last, but not least, is an in-car accessory that mounts to your dashboard and lets you integrate Alexa into your car. It comes with an eight-mic array and connects to your car through either Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, or a 3.5mm aux jack. It runs on a new Real Time OS from Amazon and uses your phone connectivity and to display in-car navigation through Google Maps. The Echo Auto will cost $49.99, after an initial discounted invite price of $24.99. It's expected to start shipping for select invited users sometime later this year. Request an invite here. BUY THE NEW AMAZON ECHO AUTO: It will cost $24.99 in the US. It'll be available to buy later this year. When it launches, you can buy it on Amazon. Previous and related coverage: Which Amazon Echo to buy? How to pick the best Alexa device for your needs Amazon now has an entire army of Echo devices. Some listen to you. Some also watch you. Which should you choose? We help you decide. Why Amazon's Alexa Skill Blueprints are a master stroke Amazon has opened up Alexa to the masses with Alexa Skill Blueprints and integrated the digital assistant even more with families. Here's why these Alexa code-free templates make good business sense. "Alexa, fart," plus 15 other useful Echo tricks and tips What? If you had a multi-billion dollar, state-of-the-art, cloud-based artificial intelligence, wouldn't you want to see if you could get it to fart? It's who we are... priorities, people! Priorities.<doc-sep>The long list of new Alexa devices Amazon announced at its hardware event For the record, there was no Alexa Kitchen Sink Everyone’s favorite trillion-dollar retailer hosted a private event today where they continued to exercise their highly strategic approach to hardware, which has them throwing everything at the wall and waiting to see what sticks. We got some new Amazon Echo devices, sure, but there was also an amp, a camera, a clock and a microwave…? There’s a lot to take a look at, including some product refreshes and entirely new verticals, so let’s get to it. Here are the new devices we heard about today from Amazon. A new, louder Echo Dot For a lot of people, the cheap and tinny Echo Dot was their first interaction with a home assistant. The frequently discounted $50 device is getting an updated look and a 75 percent more powerful speaker so that it can keep the tunes bumping. Read More An Echo for your car If you’re thinking about places where you actually need hands-free voice controls, your car is probably one of the only places. Amazon wants to get Alexa into your ride and it’s doing so with Echo Auto, a $50 dashboard accessory that you can ask to pick tunes, call people or shut off some appliance you accidentally left on. Read More The booming Echo Sub The Echo Sub may look like a giant HomePod, but it’s all about that bass. You can pair the giant speaker with an Echo or two to build out a more robust sound system. It’s $130, so the company is seriously undercutting competitors like Sonos with its sound system ambitions; it’s unclear, for now, how the audio stacks up though. We’ll have to take a closer listen. Read More The live-recording Fire TV Recast One of Amazon’s big ambitions has not only been to get its devices into your home but to take over your TV. It’s a great piece of gadget real estate to have especially when the company is looking to push Prime Video. The company’s ambitions with the $230 Fire TV Recast are focused on live-recording TV and beaming that video to other devices you have. It connects to a digital antenna and can be placed anywhere in your house, then the DVR recordings can be streamed to your Fire TV, Echo Show, Echo Spot or iOS/Android devices. Read More A slicker Echo Show If any of Amazon’s Echo devices were in need of a design refresh this was it. The Echo Show was the first of its kind, but with Smart Display devices from Google starting to emerge and Facebook still hard at work on their own device, it’s clear that the company needed to up their game. The $229 device now has a 10-inch screen and works with Skype, so you won’t have to voice call from the Alexa app. Read More A new Ring security camera Amazon bought Ring earlier this year and at its hardware event, it introduced a new device called the Stick Up Camera that is meant to be an indoor or outdoor security camera. The camera comes in wired and battery-operated versions and goes for $180. Read More The speaker-less Echo Input One of the best features of the Echo Dot was that you could output audio to an existing speaker system. Amazon showed off a new device today that does just that. The $35 device is going to be something you might see pop up in third-party speaker bundles, the company says. Read More A wildly unnecessary Alexa microwave One of the more outlandish product releases of the day was an Amazon Basics microwave with Alexa controls and Dash button functionality so you can order more popcorn. It doesn’t have voice controls built-in but it will communicate with a nearby Echo so you can ask it to add a minute to cooking something if that’s really how you want to do it. Thankfully, it’s just $60, so it’s a cheap dystopia at least. Read More An updated Echo Plus Like the new Echo Dot, the Echo Plus is getting a fabric redesign. The $150 pro Echo still has its smart hub and one of the new features that will enable is offline commands, so if your Wi-Fi goes out you’ll still be able to turn off your lights before bed. The new Echo Plus will also ship with an integrated temperature sensor so you can ask it for the temp inside or build a routine where it, say, turns on the fan when it gets too hot inside. Read More An Alexa Clock that visualizes your timers This was another sort of weird one. The $30 Wall Clock pairs with your Alexa devices and visualizes any alarms or timers you have set up with its ring of 60 LEDs. It’s a cheap device and it’s nice to be able to visualize things that you’d otherwise have to ask Alexa for updates on, but it still feels like a bit of an odd release. Read More The very pluggable Echo Smart Plug Every smart home company has a smart plug, why doesn’t Amazon? They thought that too and now they have one! It’s $25, which is pretty standard, and can turn things on and off. Read More The Echo Link and Link Amp This one was a bit surprising and showcases that Amazon is pretty serious about taking over your sound system. The $200 Echo Link connects to your receiver or amplifier and adds a bunch of inputs so you can connect speakers to it while the $300 Echo Link Amp also features a built-in 60W 2-channel amplifier to improve sound quality. Read More Updates to Alexa It wasn’t all hardware announcements at the event, though to be honest it was mostly hardware announcements at the event. We also heard about some new updates coming to Alexa, including Hunches, a system where Alexa will learn about certain smart home habits and offer occasional suggestions if it gets the feeling you forgot to do something like turn off an outdoor porch light before you go to bed. Another Alexa feature is Guard mode, which can be set when users are away and will listen for more than just its name, including noises like glass breaking. That’s a wrap. Damn, that’s a lot of devices. Check back as we’ll be taking some of these gadget for a spin with some hands-on time — with about 13 new pieces of hardware being released in rapid-fire succession, we might need a few extra hands. Check out our full coverage from the event here.<doc-sep>
Amazon announced 15 new Alexa-enabled products in less than 90 minutes at an event in Seattle on Thursday, further cementing the company's commitment to the voice assistant space. The new suite of items ranges from microwaves and clocks to security devices and car gadgets, as well as upgrades to its iconic speaker Echo. It also introduced new ways to add Alexa to third-party devices. Here's a full rundown. Amazon unveils a new version of the Echo Dot at an event on Sept. 20, 2018. Todd Haselton | CNBC Echo Dot. The company announced a new Echo Dot, its most popular Echo speaker. The Echo Dot is the best-selling speaker of all time, according to Amazon senior vice president of devices and services David Limp. The new Echo Dot, which will cost $49.99, will be 70 percent louder and have clearer sound. It will have an industrial design, and the fabric face will come in multiple colors. Orders for the new Echo Dot start on Thursday, and it will ship next month to every country where Alexa is available. Echo Plus. The new Echo Plus promises cleaner sound and better bass. It too will have a fabric design, as well as an internal temperature sensor. This new model will build on last year's smart-home hub and will add lock controls so home commands will still work even if the WiFi is unavailable. It will cost $149, with orders starting Thursday. It will ship later this month. Echo Show will get an upgrade with a 10-inch HD display, fabric body and improved sound. It will have dual side-firing speakers and an eight-microphone array. Bonus features include integration with Vevo for music videos and Hulu with live TV, as well as Microsoft Skype for video calling. Amazon Silk and Firefox browsers will also be included. It will sell for $229, with pre-orders starting Thursday. It will start shipping next month. Amazon introduces an Alexa-connected microwave oven on Sept. 20, 2018. Todd Haselton | CNBC Microwave. The Amazon Basic Microwave is integrated with Alexa. It works in conjunction with a nearby Echo, but it failed to listen to commands initially during a test on Thursday. However, it eventually successfully started microwaving a potato based on voice commands. The microwave will cost $59.99, and ship later this year. CNBC previously reported Amazon was working on a smart microwave, among other products. "The user interface for a microwave is still stuck in the '70s," Limp explained. Todd Haselton | CNBC Echo Auto. This in-car device will come with a dash mount, and is built on a new operating system from Amazon. It boots quickly so it is ready after the car is turned on. It connects to vehicles through Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE or an auxiliary jack. Data connections via a mobile phone can be used for Alexa integration. Echo Auto will be able to understand location-based routines, like pulling up to a home can alert Alexa to turn on your lights. It can ask where the nearest Starbucks is, can read you an audible book, call a user's home and call other Echos. And yes, it can provide navigation linked through Waze, Apple Maps and Google Maps. The device is $49, but will be $25 for special invitees, and will ship later this year. Amazon introduces a Smart Plug at an event on Sept. 20, 2018. Todd Haselton | CNBC Smart Plug. A $25 Alexa smart plug will allow users to plug items directly into it, and it will automatically sync with an existing Echo. A demo of the product allowed Limp to set up a smart lamp in 20 seconds using only voice commands. Wall Clock. The company also announced an Echo Wall Clock, which can be used to set timers and other time-based Alexa tasks. It will cost $30, and ship later this year. "You never have to worry about daylight savings," Limp said. "The motor will automatically change." Alexa Guard. Amazon also moved further into the security space. Alexa Guard will take your Echo, smart lights and security service provider, if you have one, and sync them all together. Users could say, "Alexa, I'm leaving," and the product will move all your Echo-linked devices into guard mode. Other smart alerts include away lighting mode, where smart lights will intelligently randomize lighting to make it look like someone is home. Alexa Guard will be integrated with Ring and home alarm company ADT to begin. Security cameras.