Amazon’s new Echo, according to Amazon’s web site, “is designed around your voice. It’s always on—just ask for information, music, news, weather, and more. Echo begins working as soon as it hears you say the wake word, “Alexa.” It’s also an expertly-tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound.”
Well, although this is perhaps one if the geekiest gadgets to enter the atmosphere of planet Earth in the last few days, it’s also really creepy.
– always on
– always listening
– cloud connected, hmmm…
Standing 9 inches tall, Echo has seven built-in far-field microphones in the top of the unit, which allow built-in voice recognition to hear you, no matter where you are in a room. When on, two down-firing speakers radiate sound 360 degrees.
Echo has a remote control with built-in mic. And there’s a dedicated Echo app for Fire OS- or Android-based phones and tablets, plus Web-based apps for Macs and PCs. A mobile iOS app is planned. The unit is $199 when it becomes available in the next several weeks, though Amazon Prime members can get it for $99 (by invitation).
When it’s not in use, the speaker is in sleep mode; to wake it up, you simply say “Alexa.” Once awake, Alexa responds to questions and commands. Echo connects to Wi-Fi, and to portable devices such as a smart phone or tablet using Bluetooth. The more you use Echo, the more it adapts to your speech patterns, vocabulary, and personal preferences.
Echo can already do a lot, but with its “brains” in the ‘cloud’, Echo will continually add new features and services via cloud-based updates.
So here are the important questions:
– how much do you want Amazon to know about you?
– what else will they be listening to?
– how much of your daily conversation will be captured?
– and what’s happening to the data they collect?
But being the geek that I am, Echo is definitely on my list of ‘must have’ gadgets. If possible, much of the voice assist stuff would be turned off, but as a streaming speaker system, I think the Echo will really perform, and at a very reasonable price, considering the current Amazon Prime deal.
Content adapted from James K. Willcox’s article written for ConsumerReports.org
