Amazon – Rings and balls.

Amazon stretches its lead.

• Amazon has launched some radical redesigns and ideas once again demonstrating how experimental Amazon is prepared to be when it comes to looking for what works in the smart home.

Alexa

• Top of the list is the complete redesign of the Echo flagship product into a sphere.
• This gives the device a more futuristic look and also enables better sound quality given the greater surface area from which to radiate sound.
• The new device also has the self-tune to the room ability that was first launched by Apple but which is becoming table stakes in smart speakers.
• The Echo dot has also been redesigned to this new look and feel which I think is radical enough to encourage previous owners to upgrade.
• The Echo Show has also had a major upgrade as the screen and camera now track the user making conference calls in the kitchen more straight forward and interactive.
• Pricing remains the same.

Ring

• By far the wackiest launch was the Ring Always Home Camera which is a security camera attached to an indoor drone that will fly predetermined routes around the house and stream the footage to the owner’s smartphone.
• This means that all the doors in the house have to be open all of the time and has of course raised all of the privacy concerns that one would expect.
• This is clearly designed for when one is out of the house and there is no way one will not know that this thing is around as drones are noisy and this is no different.
• Ring also announced three devices for the vehicle including an LTE-connected car cam, and OBD-II connected car alarm and a module for car makers to integrate into their vehicles.
• These are fairly obvious aftermarket devices that aim to make dumb vehicles a bit smarter but the connect platform is the most interesting.
• Ring Connect is an API platform that OEMs integrate into their vehicles.
• This allows Ring / Amazon to access the built-in systems of the vehicle such as the back-up camera and its locks but the long-term intent obviously goes much further.
• Its initial capability has clearly been restricted to stop carmakers from getting nervous about Amazon having access to their customers when in the vehicle, but in the long-term, it is not hard to see where this goes.

Amazon Fire devices

• Two new Fire devices which are supposed to be more capable for 4K streaming as well as more affordable.
• Amazon also launched a streaming game service called Luna to take on Google and Microsoft in this increasingly crowded segment.
• Amazon has been sensible with this gaming service and is only offering game specifications that it can be pretty confident of delivering, unlike Google.
• One trick it has is that the controller connects directly to the Amazon’s servers rather than going through the local device in an attempt to reduce the latency that has plagued other offerings.
• It remains to be seen whether or not this will work.
• At $4.99 a month, this is priced for experimentation and if it works well could see some uptake

Take-Home Message

• This launch is a combination of incremental updates and wild experimentation but underneath it is aiming to make the Amazon Smart Home offering increasingly wide-spread and pervasive.
• Google is increasingly looking like it has been left behind in this space despite the superior performance of its voice assistant.
• It has a lot of ground to make up when it launches its offerings for the smart home in a month or so’s time.