Amazon Echo
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Amazon Echo
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| Developer | Amazon.com |
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| Manufacturer | Amazon.com |
| Type | Smart voice-enabled wireless speaker |
| Release date |
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| Introductory price |
US$179.99 GB£149.99 EUR€179,99 |
| Operating system | Fire OS |
| Input | Voice command |
| Connectivity | data and Bluetooth |
| Website |
Amazon Echo (US) Amazon Echo (UK) Amazon Echo (Germany) |
Amazon Echo (known in-development as Doppler or Project D and shortened and referred to as Echo) is a smart speaker developed by Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array. The device connects to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service Alexa, which responds to the name "Alexa". This "wake word" can be changed by the user to "Amazon", "Echo" or "Computer". The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic and other real time information. It can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation hub.
Amazon had been developing Echo inside its Lab126 offices in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts since at least 2010 in confirmed reports. The device was part of Amazon’s first attempts to expand its device portfolio beyond the Kindle e-reader. The Echo was prominently featured in Amazon's first-ever Super Bowl ad in 2016.
Echo was initially limited to Amazon Prime members or by invitation, but became widely available in the United States on June 23, 2015. Press speculated that it would make its Canadian debut in mid-to-late 2016, after Amazon posted job listings for developers for Alexa and co-hosted a hackathon in Toronto. The Echo became available in the United Kingdom on 28 September 2016. Additionally, the Alexa voice service is available to be added to other devices and other companies' devices and services are encouraged to connect to it.
In the default mode the device continuously listens to all speech, monitoring for the wake word to be spoken, which is primarily set up as "Alexa" (derived from Alexa Internet, the Amazon owned Internet indexing company). The device also comes with a manually and voice-activated remote control which can be used in lieu of the 'wake word'. Echo's microphones can be manually disabled by pressing a mute button to turn off the audio processing circuit.
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