Gadgetory

ended late afternoon from the scene at Studios in New York City it's episode 290 of the 359 podcast starting late today because we have a lot of coverage about Amazon my name is BVG and in the house I've got Alfred Inge and our very own Amazon guru Ben Fox Ruben oh thank you very much so yeah there was a ton of Amazon news that the company dropped on us at a Seattle product launch event today we're gonna get through as much as we can on it on the podcast I can also can't wait to have an echo in every drawer right and we'll also try to get to like the Twitter news that they're experimenting with 280 characters instead of 140 apparently everybody on Twitter is getting really excited about that news too as always sending your questions and comments BBG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show without further ado let's do the podcast starting the recording of the audio podcast and we'll be back to take your questions and comments in the chat in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm dead Fox ribbon I'm Alfred Aang so Amazon had a big product launch event today where they basically announced everything in the kitchen sink related to the Amazon echo which is their Smart speaker line powered by the Alexa voice assistant is uh is this exciting or even keep up how many products that they announced I don't even I'm not even sure but it may have been well over five or six specific echo products there was a new Amazon echo which is a little bit slimmer and he's going to include like a shell so it looks a little bit nicer they renamed the original echo the echo plus that's going to have some better sound and have an integrated smart home hub inside it's also the echo spot what what is that that's like an echo dot with you know the screen so is it like begs the question why are they doing this and is it too many echo products there I feel like they gremlins to this where you know a general gremlins there was just the one normal gremlin and and gremlins too they're like alright now we got like lightning gremlin now we got a girl like killer gremlin and we've got smart gremlin gremlin yeah and now that's what I feel like with the new like echo lines now it's like all right now we got phone echo and now we're screening act yea echo connect we didn't even mention that that one's $35 it's going to come out later this year and it'll allow you to make phone calls including to 9-1-1 also as part of the announcement today they mentioned that you'll be able to make phone calls to the us/mexico in canada for free using your echo devices not including 9-1-1 so again there's going to be a little bit of consumer confusion when it comes to these devices as to what you use them for where you use them all that stuff not to mention that you know they've already opened up the Alexa capabilities because because of the software you know other hardware makers so now it's just Alexa on this and Alex on the singing fish that people have on their walls ass yes yes and there's so much of it out there now there is it's also worth mentioning the fact that there were also two other echo devices that already got announced earlier this year the echo show which has a touchscreen and allows you to make video calls there's also the echo look which provides you fashion advice it has like a camera on it and you like take like full-body selfies isn't there also the the - thing that like the thing you put on your fridge that you have to wand yeah that that I think was an update of an existing product but they added Alexa into yeah so what is this like is do they seriously expect people to like buy all these like different echo products for their home or is it more of like does this fit your need okay then you can get that or like so our colleague Reich Crist is there definitely encourage you to check out his Twitter feed and you know to read up on his upcoming stories on all this stuff he talked to some Amazon folks and preliminary obviously there's a lot to chew over here but they're saying that it's all about choice providing people with all sorts of different options for different usages different price points all sorts of stuff like that I would probably argue that the most successful Amazon products in general and the most successful echo products have been their least expensive one the echo dot you you could see it right there on the electronics product page the echo dot is number two and number five on the electronics product page on Amazon so that's proof positive right there that that's the one that's really selling whether some of these other ones are also going to make some serious headway we'll see and you have been diligently paying attention to the echos page they know that there hasn't been a new one on Amazon in several months right the the original echo had been out of stock for a lot of time is this worth the wait for the new echo I mean like it goes it went down in price from like one hundred and eighty dollars to a hundred dollars so obviously if you were one of the last people to get an echo for a hundred and eighty dollars I obviously feel bad for you the echo plus is a hundred and fifty dollars so they're also they're trying to compete on price and plenty of other things as you know Apple Google Samsung are all pushing into the smart home market so either way we kind of ran at a time here but if you want to read more about this stuff there's plenty on CNET on it Ben Fox Ruben I'm out for hang thanks for watching thanks for listening I lost track of time there didn't ya I was talking as fast as I could I'm just shows where it's been like we've got over like a whole minute that's about average you know what I didn't even mention the echo buttons which were like probably the most confusing of all the products these are basically Bluetooth connected buttons that you press you can connect to Alexa to do like three-card Monte like the variety of J's like all sorts of different games and stuff so and it's like 2 for 20 dollars so they're they're definitely chumming the water with so many different kinds of products this is this is Amazon in a nutshell I guess is that they're just they're doing all kinds of experimentation to try to figure out what exactly people are interested in they still sell the Amazon tap by camera echo and bottle holder back right guitar but like the Amazon tap from the third-party research that I've seen really does sell all that well it's there on the go echo and for the longest time you had to press a button on the side to actually ping Alexa the voice assistant so it kind of was like totally did like self defeating in like why you would do voice computing in the first place but they still sell that and as they continue to expand at some point one would expect them to at least slim down the product line instead they've expanded it enormous Lee this year and it just feels like so much junk ok so that's I'm it would be very interesting to see I I don't want to like make that type of like strong statement quite yet because like will like the echo dot when that came out that became a huge hit so maybe one of these to have it be cheaper and be able to plug in with like on an aux cord on like better speakers or anything to be small and discreet yeah that made a lot of sense there's things like the echo buttons I'd be surprised of that like sold at all right or if they're like even use the stocking stock or like if you if you have an echo like I can't imagine any family out there thing I wish I could play Trivial Pursuit with these buttons there's like an Amazon skull that's right up there with Apple sheet Bowl and I'm not trying to come down on anybody for that it's just that if you're invested you're invested like the loyalty clause is what wins out in this am i right I don't think Amazon has that audience I think they wanted I think that's why they're working towards here and and I think you're onto something in that the more smart homes of the future that are enabled with echo devices as opposed to Apple devices or Google devices that's a big win for Amazon and that I would probably argue as a central reason why they're doing this if you get hooked into Amazon Prime and the echo universe whether it's from the echo spot or the echo connect or whatever it is and maybe they don't even know or the echo II baton yay Brian we're gonna go featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series via Columbus but like the more people the more folks that they're more D to convince you know and like they look at these as like these different gateways into the world of Amazon remember now hopes that they can convince and echo for all right so speaking of these product lines let's go over a few like let's just kind of revisit what we've come from in the last three years and where we're going so let me just get the original echo out here oh god no wait that's my copy but it does look a lot like it sounds big here's cylindrical oh there it is you just carry that around yeah there's lots convenient and at the point of these things so you know this is this is big its bulky it's heavy I chose with it I've routinely described it as a Pringles can shaped object and it's not super attractive and it's also a three year old model almost three years old they first introduced it in November 2014 so this is the first really big design change that they had with these and what they did was they shrank it down they made it look a little bit prettier where you could add shells to it like would my gals like a shell like a Google home exactly or like a home pod if you had a clock Shalit makes it look I will say it's interesting that they timed this a week before Google event totally intentional yeah one of the things that Google is expected to announce next week is a Google home Mini for what was it like 50 bucks I think isn't like a metal that will directly compete with the echo died but you're not gonna buy a Google home Mini if you have echo buttons yeah because you love your echo buttons look I love this home assistant but how do I play three-card Monte with it alright so in a world premiere first we actually have a beta release of the new echo they send it along to us as an exclusive preview have that figured we should take a look at this and compare contrast with the original echo so I mean the height of different comedy over here you're doing an amazing difference the difference in height is daunting I think that's a huge win for them also I really like that new texture it feels kind of like a chamois cloth from the studio that you use to clean camera lenses sometimes you could unplug it and then animal blue ring around the top her in chief honey boo ya mode she actually tweeted out a really good point just basically ask them with the cloth around it how frequently can you wash it yeah oh is that a joke on like the Levi's yes okay yeah yeah so if you're out of the loop so Levi and Google teamed up for this like smart coat this like smart jacket that has like Bluetooth stuff seemed into it so you can compress on it to like control your music and whatnot course you can only wash it like ten times and it's three hundred and fifty dollar price you can wash it at all cuz it's woven into the seams so it's yeah so yeah do not throw your new echo into the wash not yet anyway all right echo goggles the guy goes do nothing oh so that's the other thing is that Financial Times earlier this year or sorry earlier this month said that Amazon is working on a pair of smart classes that were Alexa enabled so you you would just like walk around town and be like Alexa what's well I don't know like what's my news briefing or what's the next thing on my schedule what am I looking at you I don't know probably nothing I mean like it's like with you know glasses with no lenses I suppose I just want to look like Geordi running around yeah here at City but you know I think that staring at people no I'm not staring I'm getting my my stocks there there's at least proof from that rumor that there will definitely be more echo products I mean like they're not gonna stop with just that so don't answer right now but by the end of the show we need to theorize where they're gonna shove echo next the echo house I mean like it's inevitable right bye yeah yeah you have like a modular house they plop it down in on your you know in your your parcel that you just purchase then the whole thing is echo integrated that's it alright it is time for us to finally get to the questions oh I thought some of those may have been questions anyways thanks everybody for watching we're just having our fun here Matthew - your ask the - are the Alexa buttons related to the - buttons good question I don't think so these are mostly they seem to be like just for you know they do have a button thing going on no they do have a button thing going on this one is much more specific that it looks like for playing games you'd be really stupid if they restricted it just to like playing games related to your echo but I don't run the team there so I don't know what they're what decisions are making with that what else would you use it for though you press the one I mean you buy like it you could program it that's like a - button kind of thing you could like the days are way cheaper or anything like that yeah well it wouldn't be twenty dollars is my point if they were like speakers I guess I don't know that wouldn't just seemed like kind of a fun little throwaway idea for for them they priced them really lower yeah and dollars apiece and I I think that they're trying to get more game skills going and if you introduce the this one if that's a sorry how to make the algorithm smarter and more human instead get it to be more playful yeah I mean that'll teach Alexa to be more like us I guess so maybe not with the button specifically but you know with each iteration I feel like the buttons would be like a really passive-aggressive gift to give to somebody when like they don't have an echo or if they have a Google what what you don't have an echo I didn't know sorry more question yes terrible people itself is an entire show did Amazon explain this is from Michael Brown what's up Michael Brown hey Michael did Amazon explain why someone would upgrade their current echo no they didn't I don't where I was at the event I wasn't there but we were you know in conversation the whole time and there didn't seem to be much mentioned at all about that they added a lot of additional functionality to existing echo products that would cut down the need to buy a new echo so that's that's a really good question what exactly would the purpose of upgrading to a new one yeah we've talked about this in a previous like livestream or podcast where I feel like a lot of these like home assistants are gonna fall victim a tablet syndrome yeah where people will get tablets and they'll be fine with them for like a really long time to the point where they why do I even need to upgrade this like every three four years yeah one of the guys I interview that was like one of the earliest engineers that joined the echo team at Amazon says that he told me that he had to pre-launch builds of the echo at his house that he never upgraded because they didn't really change it out of the launch and you know it's it's not like a phone where it's a very it provides all these new hardware I mean that's it on that's good on Amazon and you know Google to do that with their voice assistance I really hope you know there's no like planned obsolescence on any of these like products hopefully not I I mean the whole point with this like this thing is not really the product per se the product is Alexa the product is Google assistant or Bixby or Siri yeah and it is especially within the world of the echos where you're creating all these different shaped houses for Alexa as opposed and by the way sorry if I'm triggering a bunch of different that goes right now but it's it's you're you're just providing different places for you to ping Galax as opposed to having like new or exciting looking hardware obviously they have a reason for wanting to make it to look better because you can make it look better than this but Alexa is the product did you look at handle on this yeah okay I don't look good I thought that was known Amazon put the candle inna I thought that was part of their new ambience as the product launch wanted lighter euro integrated echo candle echo candle and you know you get the Ouija board out and you know you ask Alexa but not an echo skill for Ouija yet maybe there is I mean there are 20,000 skills so maybe they're actually all echoes are currently summoning ghosts we just don't know it yet and then the buttons would move to the letters huh oh that would be a fun game that would be you can have that for free Jeff let's get do a couple more questions before a call today Parker asks can the echo buttons connect to a speaker and playing music the echo buttons I think are really just for like were limited super limited just for like gaming skills and unit tasker's as it were right and I think that people have used - buttons for different things like they've hacked - buttons so I would some people to one a hack echo buttons but it'll be interesting to see what they actually do with them because they do seem pretty limited I won't say if they can connect two speakers to play music I'd buy like 20 of them like so they're just basically $10 echo dots yeah you're suggesting yeah they're not speakers the best I could tell is it's like had an op sport that could connect to them they probably won't but if they could mmm I would buy like 20 of them yeah shout out to Jeff er we haven't seen him in a while and he's back on the back on the chat man and he's saying I want my entire house to just be an Alexa box that I walk into mm-hmm yeah yes and then the theories is that says it's already a horror movie there's several times my mom goes evil I think that was in mr. robot season two where somebody's smart home gets taken over that's like the first episode yeah like they you use like you're in the shower and the smart home like turns it up like two super hot water and yeah she's cool and yeah the alarm system goes off and she can't shut it or anything like that yeah yes so sure as we keep integrating this stuff into our lives we'll see if it goes haywire and ruins everything but hopefully that doesn't happen and hopefully people still realize that you can unplug this stuff the the echo stuff pretty easily and then not have it run operate your life let's do a quick run down back through the the product line as a refresher as to what is coming and why they're coming and then Derek wants to know if you had one if you could have one in your house which one would you take okay so probably the biggest takeaways today are the newly designed and shorter echo that's gonna cost a hundred dollars if you buy three at the same time it's $50 off so good about 250 right 250 total there's also the echo plus that's with the same original design but it's going to have better sound and smart home hub built in that I already say it was 150 bucks there's also the echo spot which is 130 dollars that's basically an echo dot with like visit like a little video yeah like a it's like tilt it up and there's a screen yeah a little a little small display included there's a new fire TV device for $69 so and I think that includes 4k they announced like a ton of stuff today they also announced like a BMW partnership where they're going to integrate Alexa into BMW cars by 2018 and then there's an eco connect there's the echo connect which can make phone calls that one's $35 he's smart landline phone yeah so which one which one would I like to have I mean one of the ones that I don't have that I'd be really interested in is the echo show that ones two hundred and thirty dollars you could make calls to other echo shows I think now you can make phone calls to everybody with it so it's got like a large display so you could almost say like it's a mounted tablet but at the same time it provides a lot more you don't think that the show is obsolete now with the spot around though weird speaker and it has a screen and it's not this bulky like little but it's a tiny screen how is that screen all that means of all the products that they announced if anything I would want the spot because it would replace like all the clocks and not clots but it looked like the alarm clock no time do the video calls and stuff it's valuable but when they demonstrated the show originally I like the idea that they were showing it being and using the kitchen and showing you how to do cooking videos recipes he's going through that with the spot means you can if you have any ridiculous vision but yeah it would be much more synchronous to you on the show like a magnifying glass or something remember the old game boys when they had magnifying lens on it [Laughter] but yeah I think going forward we might see like an Alexa wearable or something like that whether it is glass like the smart glasses or a watch Amazon is obviously finding different ways to get into phones to where like they integrate Alexa into other manufacturers phones so that's that's another thing to expect going forward and they're already doing a lot of that you know through either with you know mobile phones or automotive there are more than a few people James favor included who are excited about echo functionality in the car mmm where do we think that's gonna go uh I saw a very early demo from Ford at CES in January and it was it was buggy and it was a little clunky you had to ask Samantha which was the Ford voice assistant to ping Alexa so it was it was still pretty complicated and didn't work all the time so it was like Samantha asked Alexa what the weather is I'm like what like that doesn't work very clunky yeah so I think that it's gonna take a while to really fully integrate more properly into cars but with more cars coming out like with newer models coming out you probably get much better functionality where you can get like direction and weather and being able to make phone calls to people a lot of that stuff does exist for certain vehicles now but it might be easier to get it to more people by having an Alexa integration there was a kind of like a demo on how to get your own Alexa integrated car where like somebody he he put like a dot and like the cup holder in his car and his he had one of those cars that has its own like Wi-Fi like he put like they pay like a monthly data plan for that and they're basically saying like oh this is my way of getting Alexa in the car mm-hmm and by physically putting her in there yeah and like to mention area yeah and then like like it was pretty cool but then there was a interesting point brought up in the article where was like it's really annoying when my kids like don't like the music that I'm listening to and they can just so you can turn it off yeah I mean that just got me anything you know like road trips if like friends would be terrible with that because it's like next song next up well maybe I I the art of the Ox table man I think that the the software could be made good enough where it would only respond to your voice potentially I mean like the Google home or it doesn't yeah where where it has multi user functionality I think Amazon is eventually going to get there they just haven't quite yet so yeah alright we're almost at a time but this one got my attention s s s I think the name was do you expect better Alexa integration - home theater asking your dot to turn on a VR TV etc now they're already starting that kind of work towards that with the fire TV and a fire TV stick but yeah that would be that that's isn't that the dream in all of this is to make the other electronic entertainment aspects of your home living yeah just at the the grace of your voice yeah great question and there are certain of those capabilities already out there but probably not as awesome as people are really hoping and not as seamless which David Katz Myer was here because he would probably be able to answer this a lot more easily Amazon has been making it easier and easier to be able to control your home entertainment using the Alexa ecosystem but I think there's still I'm surprised the the new fire stick is not like Alexa enabled we were actually expecting that yeah we were expecting a fire TV box that was essentially a tiny yeah echo died that also helped that would that would have made a lot of sense maybe that one's coming I mean like that one came from a F TV what makes more sense than buttons yeah the funds I mean like that was one of like many things but you know yeah the buttons don't do much yeah let me know if you buy buttons so let's get our predictions out there imagine soggy already pitched in predictions for the echo phone forthcoming and then he was gently reminded that the last Amazon phone venture did not go so hot it totally flamed out yeah yeah it was pretty icy there are rumors that out there are rumors that Amazon was working on a new phone I talked to David limp a couple months ago who's the Amazon head of devices and he was like super squirrely about it it's like no comment like don't want to talk about it no like not gonna say much about that now where do we need echo in your life though Ben where do I need it in my life yeah that I don't that they don't have I actually like having it in my house I think it works quite well as I've enjoyed mine but where do you need it now I at this point it works very well as a smart home give me a shower no this is not what this discussion is about where does they go net where do they go next because they are going somewhere else next its its automotive they already said that and also mobile phones through other manufac we need a shower echo where it's like waterproof and it runs on batteries and then you can put it in your shower like I have a shower radio right now but it'd be awesome happily serious answer out of you I was accepted I was expecting far worse that's that's actually pretty solid like that would that would work I was thinking about replacing my shower radio with do that with an Amazon tap already if you like encased it in some sort of like plastic or whatever you could probably do it and there I mean like there are all kinds of there's not really smart home tech for the shower we're like I could be like turn on hot water and you know like echo shower yeah it'd be awesome it's like the showerhead is an echo maker no maker really intuitive so that all you have to do is tell her what mood you're in like I had a long day like draw your own therapy or it's just like and it automatically orders new like soap or like shampoo when you're like running low or if you said buttons or if you said you had a long day not only does it draw you a bath but it was you it orders you a pizza Darkon no Alexa if she was in the shower and then I'm hungover and it's just ice cold then like it made you eggs just like eggs downstairs yeah echo shower bed on it right I wouldn't be that surprised if they came out with like a watch I guess but I don't really think that they're going into phones anytime soon they really got burned I think I think they need to put it in the public transit wouldn't that be great just having her readily available to everybody play Metallica look I I for one you've heard me rant before I think it's far too peaceful on the morning commute I think it would be fantastic to have a soothing voice to ride along with you sure sure but yeah anyway there are all kinds of different places that it could be going but it seems very clear that they're very very focused on smart home because they know that's a huge market right now and there's a lot of competition coming so on the train it just like Alexa what time is it just yell out Showtime and starts breakdancing Aries have no idea what we're talking about look it up it won't be hard to find alright that's a perfect place to cut it out for the day that was a good show thanks everybody yeah thanks great questions everybody always fun to talk about this stuff anyway the 359 is available on iTunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud feed Berg Google Play Music and of course youtube.com and cnet.com I don't know why we don't have YouTube on there it's clearly a help on YouTube it is available also on YouTube thanks everybody for watching we'll see you again soon tomorrow we might be audio-only tomorrow but we'll let you know ok you you