How Amazon’s Big Devices & Services Event Played Out
October 2, 2022|Amazon Alexa, Amazon Astro, Amazon Echo, Cat6, Eero Mesh Wifi, Ethernet, Fire TV Cube, Mesh WiFi, Smart Home, Smart Home Automation, Smart Home Device, Wifi
There’s a lot to talk about as a follow up to last week’s post about Amazon’s annual fall Devices & Services event. As I shared, it’s no secret that Debbie and I have been developing an Alexa-centric smart home. So, for us and all the other Alexa fans out there it was a pretty exciting day.
The virtual event aired on Wednesday morning. Unlike livestream keynotes from Apple and Google, Amazon’s hardware event was by invite only.
Rumors had begun to surface regarding new Echo devices, and more products from Amazon’s subsidiaries like Ring and Blink. Along with the usual Echo and Ring refreshes, there were some surprises, such as the Alexa-enabled Echo Astro robot.
Amazon seems determined to follow the path of ambient intelligence. Basically, Amazon is making sure everything it releases can act as a sensor providing as much information about the environment to Alexa. The goal is to automate the smart home in a way that gives it the ability to accomplish many of the tasks we don’t want to do and in a manner that doesn’t ask too much of us in the process. But to do this Amazon needs us to ‘trust the process’ and give us reasons to buy into the ecosystem.
Amazon is prepping its Echo speakers and Fire TVs to consolidate a number of capabilities into a single gadget for the smart home. The humble Echo device is already a speaker and digital assistant, glass breakage detector, smoke alarm detector, and with the latest update from Amazon and Eero it becomes a mesh Wifi hub. Amazon also announced a new TV that will act as an extension of an Echo device with widgets, as well as a sensor package that provides information about people’s presence in the home and the surrounding environment.
Other devices such as the Fire TV Cube or the fifth generation Echo Dot, Echo speaker, or Echo Auto also come packed with sensors and features that help them work seamlessly together using Alexa. Amazon has already working toward that end with Alexa’s Hunches. It’s a service that tracks what we normally do in our home and suggests typical actions or new actions. Some may feel this is a little intrusive but I use it and really like it. My hunches include things like outdoor smart lights still on after sunrise and Alexa will ask me about turning them off. It makes a lot of sense.
Alexa will also now use information from your car and make suggestions for users in the car like locking doors at home or turning on lights at night.
I’d imagine this is exactly what most of us want when asked about the smart home. And Amazon is quickly building it, using its own devices as the necessary sensor nodes and Alexa as the brains behind the operations. Even though Alexa is cloud-based, much of the data gathered from these devices will be processed and kept local. This is Amazon’s development of an architecture and personalized computing for smart home.
Amazon introduced four new Echo devices plus upgrades to Echo Studio audio. The official press release is here.
In its Echo ecosystem, they improved the Echo Dot and Echo Dot+ Clock. The Echo Dot has been re-engineered inside to fit a larger and more capable speaker inside. The clock now has more display capabilities, turning the clock numerals into a streaming ticker or weather information. It also introduced an improved Echo Studio device and added white as a color option.
Amazon also built another clock called the Halo Rise. This one is designed for health and wellness and sits on your nightstand. It combines a light, a ‘no-contact sensor’ that measures breathing and movement, and environmental sensors. The Halo Rise measures sleep and can share environmental data and insights such as someone getting into bed and using that to set off actions in the home. It comes with a six-month subscription to Amazon’s Halo fitness and wellness service.
Amazon also introduced a new Echo Auto and a few TV products. The Echo Auto can deliver Alexa’s Hunches as I mentioned above. It can also pick up your music where you left off playing it inside your home. The Fire TV Cube has four IR blasters to control other AV devices, can translate HD content to 4K, and supports Wifi 6E. You also control your television and even cable box with their voice.
I’m especially excited about the new Fire TV Cube. I have the latest generation on all my TVs and Debbie and I really enjoy the voice control. Setting them up is pretty easy and acts as a simple platform for accessing all of our streaming services and cable box. What I particularly like about the new Fire TV Cube is all the new connectivity options — on board Ethernet port and two HDMI ports, input and output.
Obviously, the HDMI out is to the TV but the HDMI in is a real innovation. In our case we have to rely on the IR remote to control our cable box for voice control which at times can be a little jinky. But with an HDMI in the cable box can run through the Fire TV Cube. I find this ingenious for a couple of immediate reasons. First, better voice control and no need for the IR remote, simplifying operations. Second, it frees up an HDMI port on the TV (and sadly there are only two) so now I can plug in the Blu-Ray player for those rare occasions I want to play a DVD.
Amazon also introduced a Fire TV QLED Omni set that ranges from 65-inches to 75 inches in size. This TV also includes a sensor package that tracks the environment and people’s presence, but it doesn’t have a camera. It also comes with the intelligence to turn itself on or off based on a user’s presence and habits. It also shows off widgets familiar to users of Echo Show devices. And while Amazon introduces a TV that can function almost as a large-screen Echo Show (sans touchscreen and camera), the Echo Show 15 tablet is now a TV with the addition of Fire TV capabilities.
This is another new Amazon product that really intrigues me. It supports Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive and the Fire TV Ambient experience appears to be Amazon’s variation on the ‘gallery’ modes found on TVs like Samsung’s The Frame. And at a fraction of the cost.
‘Gallery’ modes let the set display art and personal photos when you’re not watching video. A gallery of 1,500 images will be available, with collections from both The National Gallery of Art in and The Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to art and photos, Alexa Widgets can be added to the screen that show news, weather, notes, calendars, sports scores, and more.
Other Amazon announcements I’m excited about are the two new Eero devices and new mesh Wifi functionality. The devices now include an Access Point running Power over Ethernet (POE) and Wifi 6. I really like Power over Ethernet because it’s more reliable and doesn’t require a power outlet. And if you’ve read many of my posts you know I’m a huge fan of wiring everything possible. This preserves bandwidth on Wifi for mobile and smart home devices that depend on it.
To support the new Power over Ethernet devices, Eero has created a 10 Gbps Power over Ethernet switch called the Eero PoE Gateway. These are a couple of my other favorite products announced by Amazon. I’ve written in the past about the extensive Cat6 network I plan to install in our new house. One of the reasons is to support a similar Wifi and network backbone by Ubiquiti. As I currently use an Eero mesh Wifi solution and really like it, this may have me re-thinking my Ubiquiti plans. I have more homework to do on the Eero POE Wifi 6 solution as it looks like it may be able to change my wifi plans and save me a significant amount of money.
Amazon also announced two really interesting features for Eero customers. Subscribers of the Eero Plus service will also get the option to designate a secondary internet connection to default to in case of an internet outage. For many, this will likely be a cell phone. Secondly, it announced that on Oct. 20 its fourth generation Echo dot and Echo devices will become Wifi mesh access points. The fifth generation Echo Dot and Echo Dot + clock devices announced last week will also act as Wifi hotspots.
A home with multiple Echo devices acting as a mesh access points, in-room and security sensors, and access to a digital assistant doesn’t need a thermostat (the Echo has the room temperature), speakers, or Wifi hotspots. It may not even need security cameras — thanks to new skills announced for Amazon’s Astro robot. Sadly, Amazon still has not gotten that Astro beer delivery thing figured out.
Astro has become a roving sensor that can be taught to recognize things such as pets and open doors or windows. It can use this knowledge (using AIto let homeowners train their robot) to notify homeowners if something is wrong. It can also be paired with other Amazon devices such as Ring’s security systems to roam to trouble spots and check them out. Ring also launched a service for small businesses to support this as well during the Amazon event.
On the home security front, Amazon is launching a new Ring Spotlight Cam Pro that will use radar for motion sensing. Amazon also announced the new Blink wired floodlight. Exterior lighting and security cameras are still undecided for our home build so this is interesting news. My preference is for wired solutions as I don’t want to be bothered with recharging batteries, especially outdoors. This is very doable with a new build. It also introduces the opportunity to use POE devices to record the video locally versus using Wifi and needing a video storage subscription. But from a capabilities perspective, you can’t argue with 1080p HDR video, enhanced motion detection, wide field of view, LED lighting, night view in color, built-in security siren and two-way audio on board between these new options.
Many familiar with the recent announcements may be focused on the new hardware, but I think they may be overlooking the services. After partnering with Disney for its Disneyland MagicBand wearable for kids, Amazon is expanding beyond the theme park’s borders. The MagicBand+ still works as a park and ride pass, but the Disney experience doesn’t stop when leaving the park. Kids can use the new ‘Hey, Disney!’ command on Echo devices for more than 1,000 interactions built by Disney. This is the first time an Alexa Custom Assistant will be available on Echo devices. By bringing kids into its wearable ecosystem now, Amazon can offer products and services to the same kids when they’re grown up.
I expect over the next few years we’ll see Amazon introducing anchor devices for each room of the home and maybe even for cars or offices. These would provide the context clues about a person that will be necessary for Alexa to really act as a digital assistant. Wearables may well be in our future as well that put Alexa’s sensors on us. Amazon is already working on smart eyeglass frames, a wearable activity tracker, and ear buds.
I’m curious if what you might have been anticipating or hoping for with Amazon’s announcements materialized. There certainly were some surprises. Which are your favorite new products? Which of the new devices do you plan to adopt or upgrade to? Keep in mind Amazon Prime Early Access Day is coming up on October 11–12. While not a fully-fledged Amazon Prime Day extravaganza, it will still be another two-day event that will feature a selection of early deals exclusively for Prime members. It’s a prelude to the big end-of-year sales period and a warm-up to Black Friday 2022.
Let Debbie and I know in the comments, DMs and emails what you think about the as we really enjoy hearing from you. Thanks again to all those following Debbie and I through our home building journey. It’s great to hear your success stories and suggestions as we move through the process. And if you like the content I’m posting each week, don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow.’ Until next week …
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