Amazon at work on new Echo to tackle HomePod, other high-end smartspeakers
Amazon is reportedly preparing a higher-end Echo to compete with the audio quality of smartspeakers like the Apple HomePod, Sonos One, and Google Home Max.
The second-generation Echo Plus.
The product will have at least four tweeters and ship by 2020, Bloomberg sources said. Prototypes are claimed to be cylindrical like current Echos, but wider to accommodate extra components.
Amazon has so far only tip-toed into the high-end audio space with products like the Echo Sub and Echo Link Amp. Instead the focus has been on making its Alexa voice assistant ubiquitous in the home, available in many different formats and compatible with everything from TVs and thermostats to security systems.
The rest of the Echo lineup will reportedly receive a minor refresh this fall. Work is meanwhile continuing on an Alexa-controlled robot, nicknamed "Vesta," which was originally expected to be announced this year but which sources say isn't ready for mass production. Amazon is allegedly diverting engineers from other projects to help.
Vesta prototypes are waist-high, moving around using wheels and an assortment of navigation cameras. The purpose of the robot is unclear, but sources speculated that it could be a mobile Alexa, following people into rooms where there aren't any Echo speakers.
The HomePod remains Apple's one and only smartspeaker, sold primarily on audio quality. The company has in fact had to lower its price to $299 and expand Siri functionality to compete, yet it still controls a marginal portion of the global smartspeaker market, dwarfed by both Amazon and Google.
The second-generation Echo Plus.
The product will have at least four tweeters and ship by 2020, Bloomberg sources said. Prototypes are claimed to be cylindrical like current Echos, but wider to accommodate extra components.
Amazon has so far only tip-toed into the high-end audio space with products like the Echo Sub and Echo Link Amp. Instead the focus has been on making its Alexa voice assistant ubiquitous in the home, available in many different formats and compatible with everything from TVs and thermostats to security systems.
The rest of the Echo lineup will reportedly receive a minor refresh this fall. Work is meanwhile continuing on an Alexa-controlled robot, nicknamed "Vesta," which was originally expected to be announced this year but which sources say isn't ready for mass production. Amazon is allegedly diverting engineers from other projects to help.
Vesta prototypes are waist-high, moving around using wheels and an assortment of navigation cameras. The purpose of the robot is unclear, but sources speculated that it could be a mobile Alexa, following people into rooms where there aren't any Echo speakers.
The HomePod remains Apple's one and only smartspeaker, sold primarily on audio quality. The company has in fact had to lower its price to $299 and expand Siri functionality to compete, yet it still controls a marginal portion of the global smartspeaker market, dwarfed by both Amazon and Google.
Comments
As we know Apple was late to the party but show everyone how it should be done.
Let see if Amazon can get this right as long as you are interested in having Amazon collecting your audio and someone listening to what you say at a later date. Can not wait for the Police to subpoena Amazon to turn over any recording they have for a specific person or house. Or maybe they will get court order to have the devices turned into a listening device for the police.
There are people who are and won't be concerned about Amazon and Google's data collection practices. Their devices are and probably will be priced the same or cheaper than the HomePod. Alexa is quite superior to Siri in many ways, at least for the time being.
I only have one HomePod at the moment, but plan on getting another one. I like that they will 'pair up' for true stereo. An ATV is yet to grace my room, but it's on the list. Good to know the HP will play nice with it.
I was reading last night, with room lights low and not a sound in the house, when the HP lit up and a got a couple of seconds of swirling light. The HP has done this from time to time, sometimes probably triggered by something it 'heard' on the TV resembling the trigger.
This is the second time it's been dead quiet and Siri has woken up and taken a quick listen. I'm curious as to why and if anybody else has that experience.
All the current smart speakers are sometimes triggered to "listen" even tho no wake phrase was actually uttered. That's one of the important reasons that Apple/Amazon/Google all have humans transcribing user conversations to better understand why it happens and eventually eliminate most of the erroneous triggering. Correcting misunderstood requests is of course another need requiring human intervention.
With Google and Alexa you can go into your account and review what their voice assistants thought was uttered. Certainly could assist you with knowing how often it happens to you and perhaps even why. In my case my wife has a habit of calling out to our dog "Hey Boo-boo", which of course very often but not always results in the closest Home speaker activating for a few seconds waiting for a command/input after hearing 'Hey Google". FWIW it seems to happening less often tho.
Apple doesn't currently allow a user to review what Siri heard, and may not ever, so a bit more difficult to know that trigger errors are occuring or how often unless you happen to be looking at your device at the time, and obviously no way to see what it thought it heard so you might better understand why. In your case you would have to depend on Apple stumbling upon the error sometime after your voice recording had been uploaded to them and forwarded for human transcription, and a human determining it WAS an error and Apple voice engineers deciding how best to approach it.
...Or if it seems to happen somewhat regularly in an otherwise silent room you might want to return it under warranty for a new one. My guess is Siri is just misunderstanding something it heard.
I think their expensive echo will fail(by Apple standards) because they already marketed their crap as free or cheap.
But I think they can beat Sonos in a way because they have Amazon.com. This is the reason Echo even got popular. I'm always bombarded by their crap when on that site. If Amazon begins to compete with higher end speakers it makes me wonder if Alexa will be the new Android where many manufacturers use it but none want it causing the bold to create their own Siri knockoffs.
I can see this happening:
"Hey Sonos"
"Yo LG"
"Hello Huawei"
"Hi Xiaomi"
If these aren't already happening...
There's nothing in that statement that says Siri is collecting data. There is nothing in that statement that says concern. Reading is easy. Apparently reading comprehension, not so much. I am curious as to why Siri wakes up without a trigger and what she's doing.
I can be certain it didn't hear anything because as I said:
You have a link or actual source to support that? Who is doing the triggering and why?
Two times is not somewhat regularly. It's just two times. As this was in a silent room, no, it's not misunderstanding something it didn't hear.
- A hardware fault or
- Erroneous misinterpretation of some sound being recognized as the trigger phrase.
In either event whatever is being said or whatever sound is being produced, even if none at all, is being relayed to Apple servers for processing. Obviously if no commands can be discerned from that voice recording then Siri may not offer any response to you and the light will go off. But if it lit up there was a data flow transmission consisting of whatever sounds it heard back to Apple servers. That's what the light is telling you: Active recording is taking place, and every recording is uploaded, processed, and actioned via Apple servers.
There is no person on the other end turning your device on. It's just making a mistake, either thru a hardware issue or by algorithm but yes the resultant recording is sent to Apple, and yes it may end up with a human listener transcribing it in an effort to understand what if anything was heard. That's a good thing as it improves the service.