Speaker 1: Fourteen new Alexa powered devices from Amazon.
Speaker 2: What's going on? I'm Richdmiro, this is rich on tech. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I.
Speaker 1: Wasn't invited to Amazon's big surprise event in Seattle, but
Speaker 1: I won't hold that against the company. They took reporters
Speaker 1: on a wild ride announcing over seventy new devices, features,
Speaker 1: and developer tools across Alexa, Echo, and fireTV. It's very
Speaker 1: clear Amazon has huge plans for Alexa and wants it
Speaker 1: to power just about every aspect of our everyday lives.
Speaker 1: And as Amazon builds its portfolio, the missing piece might
Speaker 1: just be another smartphone. So let's go through some of
Speaker 1: the most notable products that they launched, starting with the
Speaker 1: Echo lineup.
Speaker 2: It is a lot. First off, you've got the Echo Dot.
Speaker 1: It now comes wrapped in fabric and it has a
Speaker 1: louder speaker with better sound. The price stays the same
Speaker 1: at fifty dollars. That launches October eleventh. The Echo Plus
Speaker 1: is their top of the line Echo speaker. This has
Speaker 1: a new rounder design. It's also wrapped in fabric. It
Speaker 1: also functions as a smart home hub. The speaker inside
Speaker 1: the Echo Plus is also upgraded. That will sell for
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars. It is also available on
Speaker 1: October eleventh. The Echo Show is sort of a mini
Speaker 1: TV slash tablet slash show screen slash video conferencing tool. Now, personally,
Speaker 1: I use an iPad on my kitchen counter. I think
Speaker 1: this would be a great replacement for that, but I
Speaker 1: don't really need some extra features that this offers.
Speaker 2: This is the second generation of the device.
Speaker 1: Amazon upgraded the design added a better speaker, plus it
Speaker 1: also has a larger.
Speaker 2: Ten inch HD display.
Speaker 1: They're also adding Skype to the options for video calling,
Speaker 1: which is really cool because you're no longer limited to
Speaker 1: Amazon's proprietary option and pretty much anyone with Skype will
Speaker 1: be able to talk to you on the other end.
Speaker 1: That's pretty big. This sells for two hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: It's also available on October eleventh. There's a new thing
Speaker 1: called Echo Auto. This brings Alexa into your car, sort
Speaker 1: of a stopgap until more automakers jump on board with
Speaker 1: Alexa built into their cars, or at least the head units.
Speaker 1: This is a small device that connects to your car
Speaker 1: via Blue or the AUX input. It has eight microphone
Speaker 1: so Amazon says it will hear your commands above all
Speaker 1: the road noise and the AC blasting. The device will
Speaker 1: be fifty dollars when it officially launches, but right now
Speaker 1: you can request an invitation to buy one.
Speaker 2: For just twenty five dollars. All right. From here things
Speaker 2: get pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Amazon launched a bunch of Echo companion devices think Alexa.
Speaker 1: In just about every aspect of your house. There is
Speaker 1: a wall clock which connects to Echo devices. It looks
Speaker 1: like your typical analog wall clock, but it helps you
Speaker 1: visualize timers that you set with Alexa. And I kind
Speaker 1: of like the idea of this because I regularly set
Speaker 1: timers for my kids for reading, watching TV, or other things,
Speaker 1: and I like the idea that they can glance up
Speaker 1: and kind of see visually how much time is left.
Speaker 2: That is thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: Then there's a whole bunch of Echo accessories for your
Speaker 1: home theater setup. There's an input that lets you add
Speaker 1: Alexa to any speaker for thirty five dollars, a sub
Speaker 1: for more base when you play TV or music on
Speaker 1: your Echo devices that's one hundred and thirty dollars. Then
Speaker 1: there's an Echo link which connects to your stereo system
Speaker 1: and allows you to feed your streaming music in high
Speaker 1: quality format to your existing receiver.
Speaker 2: That's two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: And there's even an EchoLink amp which has its own
Speaker 1: power and it works to pass music to any pair
Speaker 1: of speakers for three hundred dollars. I wonder what Sonos
Speaker 1: is thinking right now, because the only thing Amazon did
Speaker 1: not reveal was a Alexa powered soundbar for your TV.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's next.
Speaker 1: As if all that's not enough, Amazon also announced in
Speaker 1: Amazon Basics microwave.
Speaker 2: This is a sixty dollars microwave that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't necessarily have Alexa built in, but it does work
Speaker 1: with a nearby echo to take commands for cooking food,
Speaker 1: so you can say things like reheat coffee or microwave
Speaker 1: frozen vegetables. And I love the idea of this and
Speaker 1: suddenly wish my microwave was not built into my kitchen setup.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a no brainer purchase for the
Speaker 1: price at just sixty bucks. And the best part is
Speaker 1: I love microwave popcorn. By the way, I love popcorn
Speaker 1: in general. You can finally use the popcorn button on
Speaker 1: your microwave, even though every bag of popcorn you ever
Speaker 1: buy says the first rule of Popcorn Club is.
Speaker 2: Don't ever use the popcorn button.
Speaker 1: The Amazon microwave is smart enough to ask you the
Speaker 1: brand of your popcorn and the size of the.
Speaker 2: Bag so that it pops perfectly every time.
Speaker 1: There's also a one touch popcorn replenishment button. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this was built for people that love popcorn. The Amazon
Speaker 1: Basics Microwave is available on November fourteenth. Finally, there's now
Speaker 1: an Amazon smart plug that you control with Alexa.
Speaker 2: These are fantastic.
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of other brands of these things
Speaker 1: around my house and I find them really useful, especially
Speaker 1: for controlling holiday lights the Christmas tree and little tabletop
Speaker 1: lamps I have around the house that turn on and
Speaker 1: off at sunrise and sunset. And sure there are lots
Speaker 1: of these from various brands, but Amazon offering their own
Speaker 1: smart plug is really a smart idea because you know
Speaker 1: it's gonna easily work with Alexa.
Speaker 2: And the quality is going to be there.
Speaker 1: And Amazon smart plug is twenty five dollars, which is
Speaker 1: about the average going price from other competitors. Usually they're
Speaker 1: around thirty five dollars. I would have liked to see
Speaker 1: this offered at ten or fifteen dollars, but perhaps what will
Speaker 1: happen when Amazon sells them as a bundle or puts
Speaker 1: them on sale. The smart plug is available October eleventh
Speaker 1: as well. But wait, there's more, including a new feature
Speaker 1: that lets Alexa control basic functionality of your smart home
Speaker 1: devices even if her Internet connection goes out.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to focus on just one more interesting
Speaker 1: addition to the lineup, which is a new fireTV DVR.
Speaker 2: It's called the fireTV Recast and this.
Speaker 1: Is sort of the missing link between what we were
Speaker 1: used to, which was a DVR with every channel imaginable,
Speaker 1: and the new age of cord cutting and streaming everything
Speaker 1: through a box like fireTV. Now. I still haven't made
Speaker 1: up my mind whether this Recast TV is brilliant or
Speaker 1: too late to be useful, But here's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's a simple little box that you set up pretty
Speaker 1: much anywhere in your house where you can put up
Speaker 1: an antenna and get the best reception for over the
Speaker 1: air channels. Then it goes to work recording your favorite
Speaker 1: shows and saving them on its internal hard drive. You
Speaker 1: can then view your shows on an Amazon fireTV, a
Speaker 1: tablet or an IOA or Android device. It doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like there's support for Apple TV, Roku or Chromecast out
Speaker 1: of the gate, but I could definitely see that being
Speaker 1: added down the line. Of course, you can easily browse
Speaker 1: through your recordings, see what's currently live and more on
Speaker 1: a fire TV connected to your TV set. What's also
Speaker 1: cool about this is that you can finally get and
Speaker 1: record all of your local channels for free, and for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, that, along with the Netflix subscription,
Speaker 1: will be pretty much all they need. And you also
Speaker 1: have Amazon Prime Video of course, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a modern TVO. But the other great thing is that
Speaker 1: this is a one time purchase. There are no ongoing
Speaker 1: monthly fees, and you can even choose shows from an
Speaker 1: on screen guide to record, or you can use your
Speaker 1: voice with Alexa to tune in channels, shows or even
Speaker 1: set up recordings.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of loving this, especially since the channel I
Speaker 1: work for, which is KTLA and Los Angeles, isn't on
Speaker 1: any streaming service just yet, and of course you can
Speaker 1: easily grab the channel over the air, so now I
Speaker 1: can pipe our programming right onto my TV screen and
Speaker 1: into my devices. I really hope Amazon adds the ability
Speaker 1: to download shows that you record on your recast to
Speaker 1: our devices. That would really be the missing link here.
Speaker 1: The fire TV recast comes in two models. A two
Speaker 1: tuner model, which is five hundred gigabytes, can record two
Speaker 1: shows at once and hold up to seventy five hours
Speaker 1: of programming.
Speaker 2: That's two hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: Then there's also a four tuner model that can record
Speaker 1: a whopping four shows at once that holds up to
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty hours of HD shows and that's
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty dollars.
Speaker 2: This is kind of the better buy, but you will
Speaker 2: be able to add.
Speaker 1: An external hard drive to either of these systems down
Speaker 1: the road. The Recast TV is shipping November fourteenth. You
Speaker 1: better believe I'll be buying one, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it can recapture the excitement of my first TVO, which
Speaker 1: was back in two thousand. I invited all my friends
Speaker 1: over I put on Survivor back when it was big,
Speaker 1: and I will never forget watching the look on their
Speaker 1: faces as I paused live TV for the very first time.
Speaker 1: They were all baffled as to what I just did.
Speaker 1: That was a pretty cool memory. Of course, we're all
Speaker 1: pretty used to pausing live TV at this point. There
Speaker 1: you have it, Amazon Alexa overload. It is full on
Speaker 1: game on between Amazon, Google, and Apple for smart assistant dominance,
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 2: Home, car, and everywhere in between.
Speaker 1: Apple and Google might have had a head start on phones,
Speaker 1: but Amazon is certainly making a big play for everywhere else.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to the podcast and if
Speaker 1: you enjoy this. If you enjoy listening to this, please
Speaker 1: take a screenshot on your phone and share it on
Speaker 1: social media with your friends, and please remember to tag
Speaker 1: me so I can share in the love and say thanks.
Speaker 1: Just a quick programming note, I will be filling in
Speaker 1: for Leo Laporte on his radio show this weekend September
Speaker 1: twenty second and twenty third. You can listen on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty in Los Angeles from eleven am to
Speaker 1: two pm, or you can find a station near you
Speaker 1: just go to tech guy labs dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Damiro I'll talk
Speaker 2: to you real soon.