{"id":408129,"date":"2017-09-28T02:11:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T18:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2017\/09\/27\/amazon-new-echo-speaker-better-sound\/"},"modified":"2017-09-28T02:11:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T18:11:34","slug":"amazon-launches-new-99-echo-speaker-with-better-sound-and-149-echo-plus-smart-home-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/amazon-launches-new-99-echo-speaker-with-better-sound-and-149-echo-plus-smart-home-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Launches New $99 Echo Speaker With Better Sound and $149 Echo Plus Smart Home Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

At an event in Seattle this morning, Amazon unveiled<\/a> its next-generation Amazon Echo speaker, which features a new smaller design and better sound than the original Echo to compete with products like Apple’s upcoming HomePod.<\/p>\n

Apple focused heavily on sound quality as a way to differentiate the HomePod from existing smart speakers like the Google Home and the Amazon Echo, with a 7 tweeter array, a 4-inch upward-facing woofer, and an A8 processor capable of advanced acoustic modeling and spatial awareness. Shortly after the HomePod was unveiled, rumors of a higher-end Echo surfaced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Amazon’s new Echo, image via TechCrunch<\/a><\/center>
Amazon’s new Echo supports Dolby Audio and it has a dedicated woofer and tweeter, features Amazon says bring better sound. It also includes second-generation voice recognition capabilities, second-generation far-field microphone technology, and support for multi-room audio so several Echo devices can be used together.<\/p>\n

The Echo is made from metal and is wrapped in a fabric shell, which can be swapped out with other shells for customization much like the Google Home. Amazon is offering six shells for the Echo.<\/p>\n

Amazon plans to charge $99 for the new Echo, making it much more affordable than the HomePod, which will be priced at $349 when it launches in December. Pre-orders for the new Echo are available today.<\/p>\n

There’s also a new Echo Plus<\/a>, with built-in Zigbee functionality for smart home hub functionality and all of the same improvements in the new Echo model. It’s designed to work with a wide range of smart home products right out of the box, with over 100 partners signed up. Echo Plus is similar in design to the original Echo, while the new $99 Echo is smaller and shorter. Amazon is charging $149 for the Echo Plus, and it comes with a free Philips Hue bulb.<\/p>\n

Echo Buttons, also new, are priced at $20 and are designed to allow Echo owners to play trivia games with the Echo, and the Echo Spot is a new Echo device that features a 2.5-inch circular display. It’s a cross between an Echo and a smart alarm clock with a price tag of $130.<\/p>\n

Along with the new Echo models, Amazon announced the $35 Echo Connect<\/a>, a device that’s designed to plug into a phone jack on one side and an Echo on the other, allowing the Echo to be used as a telephone able to accept calls from a person’s standard home phone number. The Echo Connect is also available for pre-order today. Amazon Echo speakers are also gaining call functionality that will let them make phone calls to any number.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At an event in Seattle this morning, Amazon unveiled its next-generation Amazon Echo speaker, which features a new smaller design and better sound than the original Echo to compete with products like Apple’s upcoming HomePod. Apple focused heavily on sound quality as a way to differentiate the HomePod from existing smart speakers like the Google […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":408130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[68,69,59,26],"class_list":["post-408129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-macrumors","tag-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}