This year’s 2021 Amazon event held a lot of surprises – along with some notable absences.
This year’s 2021 Amazon event held a lot of surprises. There was a smart home robot called Astro that combines huge swathes of Amazon’s technology portfolio into one companion device – smart displays, video cameras, and the like – as well as an Amazon Glow toy for games beamed via projector onto the floor in front of it. We also saw more information about a Ring camera drone, a new security system and Wi-Fi 6 router in the Ring Alarm Pro, a Blink Video doorbell, a Halo View fitness tracker with a built-in screen, and more. But for every big surprise announcement, there was also a notable absence. Despite Amazon having built its technology reputation on the Amazon Echo speaker range, there were no new iterations to be had. Considering previous years have seen reimaginings of the Echo (with the kind of glowing orb befitting a Pixar villain) or even Echo Studio speakers that an audiophile wouldn’t feel completely embarrassed to be caught listening to, it’s odd not to see anything announced in that product category this time around. As a category at the core of Amazon’s gadget ranges, though, it’s clear that the retail giant still has big plans for it – and more hardware iterations will certainly come next year for a number of Echo models.
