Amazon is hosting a hardware launch event this morning at its Seattle headquarters, and has invited the press into the Spheres, Amazon’s urban botanical gardens, to show off the new products.
It’s widely expected that Amazon will announce several new Alexa-equipped hardware products or device partnerships, adding to an already expansive line of Echos and other smart devices. The company hosted a similar event last fall, which reaffirmed Amazon’s commitment to putting Alexa in as many places as possible. At that event, Amazon introduced a new 4K Fire TV; a smaller, $99 Echo speaker; a $149 Echo Plus speaker; an Echo that looks like an alarm clock, called the Echo Spot; Echo Buttons, for casual games; and a partnership with BMW to make Alexa work in cars. It also rolled out the ability to initiate phone calls with Alexa, using a $35 device called the Echo Connect.
On Monday, CNBC reported that Amazon planned to launch at least eight new products this year, including a voice-controlled microwave, amplifier, subwoofer, and in-car gadget. Some of those will be unveiled at the event today, CNBC said. It’s unclear whether home appliances like the microwave would be wholly Amazon made, or whether that would be through a hardware partnership. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on or confirm the reported new products, other than to say, "we'll have news related to Alexa and Fire TV."
Eight new products may seem like a lot, but it’s consistent with Amazon’s overall strategy. The company often introduces low-cost, utilitarian devices designed not just to get people hooked on Alexa, but to get people to use Amazon’s services. Back in 2012, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos divulged that the company wasn’t making any money off of its Kindle e-readers, and was using them instead to acquire customers and to get them to buy stuff. “We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices,” Bezos said at the time. “The continuing relationship with the customer is where we hope to make money over time.”
Since then, Amazon’s hardware business has grown far beyond just the Kindle, ranging from tablets to streaming video set-top boxes to Alexa-enabled speakers to non-Amazon devices—including cars—that license the company’s voice-control technology. In 2015, it went so far as selling a “six-pack” of tablets: literally, a package of 6 tablets that cost less than $50 each.
Amazon’s retail and cloud services still make up the largest parts of its overall business, but its hardware plays a big role too. Amazon’s plan is to create as many “touchpoints” as possible in your life that could suck you into buying stuff from Amazon, whether that’s through the Echo Dot in your living room, in its Whole Foods grocery stores, or in its cashier-less Go convenience stores. Amazon has shown a ruthless ambition in expanding into as many areas of commerce as possible. Alexa is indeed an excellent voice assistant; it’s also a means to an end.
Expect Alexa to be the star of the show today, and not just in the new hardware. We could also see improvements around voice recognition, contextual information, and skills. At last year’s event, Amazon introduced the ability for Alexa to perform multi-step routines based on a single command, something that appealed to smart home lovers with lots of connected products. Over time Alexa has started to show off more conversational features, like suggesting another related topic if the voice assistant doesn’t quite understand an initial query for a news update. We’re expecting that “conversational” aspect of Alexa—something that Google has gotten quite good at with its own virtual assistant—to be a focus today.
Given the wide variety of products that could be announced at today’s event, though, it’s not just Google that Amazon is competing with—it’s everyone from Google to Apple to Sonos to appliance makers. Now that every company in Silicon Valley makes smart speakers, and has ever-smarter voice assistants living inside of them, Amazon needs these flashy hardware events to grab a slice of your attention. It's part of the company's bid to get itself in your living room, your kitchen, your car. And it's hoping that with eight or so new products, there will be something for everyone.
- How to make the most of Apple's iOS 12
- It'll take way more than this to oust Elon Musk from Tesla
- The truth about Amazon, food Stamps, and tax breaks
- The hidden link between farm antibiotics and illness
- The rise and fall of the supercut video
- Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss our latest and greatest stories
