Amazon event 2018: all of the new Echo and hardware news – The Verge

Amazon’s Echo Auto is another quick fix for the broken state of in-car infotainment

2018-09-21T15:43:59-04:00

Amazon's new Echo Auto - a $50 credit card-sized box that sits on your dashboard and brings Alexa to your car - is a lot of things at once. It's a relatively cheap way to smarten up a car that might not have a snazzy infotainment system. It's a new beachhead for Amazon in the automotive world, which the company has focused increasing attention on over the years. It's also another place for you to yell at Alexa to order more toilet paper.

What the Echo Auto really is, though, is a symptom of the messy state of in-car software.

Almost every major car company now allows Apple's and Google's own respective in-car infotainment systems to work a …

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Amazon’s new Alexa-ready products are now available for preorder

2018-09-20T16:23:13-04:00

The new Amazon Echo Show

At its 2018 hardware event in Seattle, Amazon announced several new Alexa-powered A/V devices, smart home products, and a few others that fall outside of the company's usual wheelhouse. It was a mix of brand-new and updated products, and the biggest announcements include the redesigned Echo Dot and Echo Plus, the Echo Sub subwoofer, Amazon's Echo Auto, and the Fire TV Recast cloud DVR box.

Many of the products announced today are up for preorder, most of which will be available in October. There's plenty to dive into regarding the huge list of product debuts, and we've got you covered if you're looking to place a preorder (or 10).

Amazon Ec …

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Amazon Fire TV Recast hands-on: a very smart and elegant DVR for cord cutters

2018-09-20T16:13:14-04:00

I just got a quick demo of the Amazon Fire TV Recast. It's a shoebox-sized thing you can put in your home to have a DVR that works with over-the-air channels that it receives via antenna and displays on your Fire TV (or Fire tablet). Like the Slingbox back in the day, the idea behind the Recast is to allow you to watch both live TV and stuff that you've recorded from anywhere.

There have been a million different weird takes on how to get TV content to act more like streaming content, so I should probably slow down a bit and explain exactly what the Recast is and how it works.

Fundamentally, you should think of it as a screenless hard drive …

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The 14 biggest announcements from Amazon’s surprise hardware event

2018-09-20T14:47:51-04:00

Today Amazon held a hardware event that was loaded with new product announcements. We got new Echo speakers, a new Echo Show, and even a microwave.

In many ways, the sprawling event was a showcase of how far Alexa has come in the four years since Amazon's voice assistant was first introduced in 2014. The technology has evolved far beyond its early capabilities on the original Echo speaker.

Here are all the biggest announcements:

New Echo Dot

Amazon says it "went back to the drawing board" when designing the new Echo Dot. The company says it features a larger 1.6-inch driver, is 70 percent louder than the previous model, and much clearer so …

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Amazon is putting Alexa into every car with Echo Auto

2018-09-20T14:24:12-04:00

In its now second annual hardware event, Amazon today announced Echo Auto, an in-car accessory that allows you to integrate Alexa into your car.

There are a couple of ways customers can already access Alexa in the car - you could download an Alexa app, buy accessories or even a Moto Mod, or drive cars with the software built in. But the Echo Auto makes it far easier to integrate Alexa into any car, regardless of whether your automaker included it or not.

The Echo Auto features the same eight-mic array as the Echo Show, and can connect to your car through a 3.5mm aux jack, or by connecting over a smartphone's existing Bluetooth setup (for c …

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Amazon Fire TV Recast lets you send live TV streams to your device

2018-09-20T14:20:24-04:00

Amazon announced a new Fire TV Recast today. It's a box that can beam shows from an antenna to your device through Fire TV. All you need to do is place the box in your home, and start streaming on your Echo Show, Spot, Fire TV, or on mobile.

A feature in the app will help you determine where to put your antenna for the strongest signal. Fire TV Recast can be integrated into the channel guide, so you could watch with Prime Video and even PlayStation Vue. You can also watch local news and shows from channels like ABC, The CW, and NBC.

Recast can also broadcast live TV to your Echo Show as recordings. You can record up to two shows at a time …

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Amazon is making it easier to set up new Internet of Things gadgets

2018-09-20T14:10:56-04:00

Amazon is introducing a new way to make setting up any smart device as easy as plugging it in. Called Wi-Fi Simple Setup, the system will use Amazon's Wi-Fi Locker to store your Wi-Fi credentials and share them with compatible smart home devices.

Amazon is debuting this tech with TP-Link and Eero, with the idea that customers can reuse network credentials in order to set up new devices. This means devices will connect on their own instead of you having to manually set up each smart product. According to Amazon, it's as easy as plugging in a Wi-Fi Simple Setup-enabled device. The device will automatically look for the Wi-Fi Simple Setup Netw …

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Amazon updates Ring Stick Up Cam with same $180 price tag

2018-09-20T14:08:36-04:00

Amazon announced today that it's planning to release a new Ring Stick Up Camera. It'll come in two versions: wired and battery-powered. The wired version includes an Ethernet port. It'll be released in black and white and works both indoors and outside. It's now available to preorder at Ring.com, Amazon, Best Buy, and Home Depot for $179.99. It'll start shipping on October 18th.

Ring already sold a Stick Up Cam; this is just an update. The prior model also worked indoors and outdoors and could withstand temperatures between -5 degrees Fahrenheit and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It also recorded 720p video and allowed for live streaming through t …

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Amazon is turning the Echo into a security system

2018-09-20T14:03:31-04:00

Amazon is adding a few new features to the Echo that turn it into one of the basic pieces of a smart security system. Since Echo speakers are always listening, they'll be able to start listening for the sound of broken glass, or for a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm to go off. If it hears those sounds while you're out of the house, it'll be able to send a notification to your phone; or, if you have a supported professional monitoring system, send it directly to the service monitoring your home.

The feature set is being called Alexa Guard. It won't be working at all times - instead, you'll have to enable it when you leave the house, by tellin …

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Amazon introduces a redesigned Echo Show with a larger 10-inch display

2018-09-20T14:02:09-04:00

Amazon has just announced an all-new Echo Show at its Alexa event. The new device features a larger 10-inch display and gets rid of the weird chin from the first-generation device, along with offering a smart home hub inside and a new fabric back cover (bringing the design in line with the other new Echo devices it announced today.)

Also new are revamped speakers, with the updated Show now offering dual, side-firing two-inch neodymium drivers that replace the front-facing ones that were below the screen on the older model.

Amazon is offering some new apps for the Show, too - the company is partnering with Microsoft to bring Skype calling t …

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