According to the latest report, Amazon is reportedly working on another home speaker based on Alexa but this time with a 7-inch Touch-Screen. For those who don’t know, Amazon has already launched a couple of Home Speakers before – the Echo and Echo Dot. Also, Google recently launched the Google Home which somewhat does the same thing but with Google Search integration.
Moreover, Alexa is the voice-based assistant which powers Amazon’s current home speaker devices i.e. Echo. Amazon is yet to introduce Echo in India so we understand if you didn’t know about this device before.
Now, the new 7-inch screen which is touted to be featured in the next variant will display information like weather, upcoming appointments, news, recipes. Also, the screen is said to come with tilting functionality for better viewing angles irrespective of where do you use the device. Users will also have the ability to PIN items on the screen just like we do with a bunch of magnets on our refrigerators.
For the OS, Bloomberg states that Amazon is likely to include the Fire OS which is currently powering Amazon’s Fire tablet series. Moreover, a display on Echo device will see Amazon let off the current design approach which is entirely based on voice recognition. To navigate via touchscreen is far more efficient than to rest it over a voice-command. No doubt, voice recognition is improving day-by-day but it’s too early for it to replace touchscreen interaction. That is why people are not likely to buy Google Home unless they really want to rely on voice recognition. That aside, both Google Home and Amazon Echo are decent Bluetooth speakers as well.
As far as the availability and price are concerned there is no official information about it.