The company also unveiled the WiFi 7-compatible Eero Max, Fire tablets, TV dongles, and upgraded Echo Frames.
Despite the repeated reports of doom, gloom, and reorganization inside Amazon’s hardware division, that hasn’t stopped the company from moving forward with its vision for the “ambient home.” At its streamed live event in Virginia today, Amazon announced a bevy of new connected products for its Echo lineup, including new pairs of Alexa-enabled smart glasses. It also shared some of the work it’s been attempting behind the scenes with its LLMs to make Alexa more conversational as you turn your smart home devices on and off.
Amazon’s other efforts joined in the deluge of announcements. There are new Fire tablets and Fire TV sticks. Eero launched a new WiFi 7-enabled router. It is not the first router to hit the market with the capability, but the spec has yet to be widely adopted, so consider this one future-proofed.
It’s about time Amazon announced an update to its flagship smart display. The last-gen Echo Show 8 launched in 2021, and though you’re fine if you have that model in your home, you’re missing out on this one’s spatial audio capabilities. Like the Sonos algorithm in its respective smart speakers, the Echo Show 8 offers “room adaptation” technology to figure out how to deliver sound and make music sound its best.
The new Echo Show 8 is a bit more bulbous, but at least it’s well-equipped. There’s a 13-megapixel camera for video calls with improved background noise muffling capabilities. The Echo Show 8 has all the requisite connections for the smart home, including Matter, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Thread, and Sidewalk, which Amazon uses as its internal mesh network to let you know how close your package is to arriving.
Amazon also says the Echo Show 8 runs an “improved processor” that can handle smart home commands up to 40% faster than its predecessor. We’ll be able to try it ourselves soon. The Echo Show 8 is out next month and will cost $150. It will also be the first product to debut Alexa’s Adaptive Content, the company’s “new home screen experience” that adjusts content based on your proximity.
