Amazon product news roundup: At its Fall 2022 Hardware Event last week, Amazon showed off its status as a technology creator versus an online retailer. Here are the latest product announcements:
Sleep tracker:
- Amazon’s most novel offering is the Halo Rise, a bedside device with three purposes: a clock, a light, and a tracker that assesses sleep quality based on breathing rhythms.
- Unlike a wearable, the Halo Rise monitors sleep from a distance, sending sleep optimization tips to an app.
- The light feature also slowly brightens to match sleep-wake cycles.
E-reader:
- Amazon announced its next generation entry-level Kindle in September, and now it’s showcasing a Scribe e-reader.
- Instead of only downloading e-books and reading them, Scribe lets you write on the device with an included pen.
- The most obvious purpose of this is to take notes about books, but it could also be used for editing documents, list-making, and journaling.
Home security:
- The tech giant made two additions to its Ring security camera series: The Spotlight Cam Plus and Spotlight Cam Pro.
- The Plus is an outdoor security camera with an integrated spotlight. It can be solar- or battery-powered, hardwired, or plugged in.
- The Pro adds improved audio quality and radar-powered 3D motion detection, as well as a bird’s-eye view feature that provides an aerial view of a property.
Connected TV (CTV):
- Amazon announced its Fire TV Omni QLED line as a premium upgrade in its Omni Series.
- One of the biggest changes is an “ambient experience” feature that uses sensors to automatically turn the TV on or off when someone enters or leaves a room.
- The new models also offer quantum dots for better color, LED backlights, 96 local dimming zones, and support for advanced HDR formats.
Other notable products:
- The fifth-generation Echo Dot, with a temperature sensor and upgraded display to show more content.
- The Echo Auto, enabling Alexa capabilities for vehicles.
- An Echo Dot Kids device with child-focused content governed by parental controls.
- The Alexa Together, a service that helps families monitor loved ones.
Bezos at bedtime, and at all times: While other tech companies want to take consumers to virtual worlds, Amazon is taking another path, including with its pending acquisition of iRobot—maker of the home-mapping Roomba.
- It wants to be a perpetual and pervasive presence in consumers’ everyday lives, especially in their homes.
- We might also see this expand to other real-world spheres like the workplace and even the doctor’s office.
- It’s part of Amazon’s push for “ambient intelligence” that renders IoT more invisible and interoperable in the background while it anticipates and responds to people’s needs—even as they sleep or journal.
- The strategy is solid given decades of consumer conditioning for ambient intelligence through sci-fi films and books.
- Yet mounting security and privacy concerns about Amazon’s desire to get personal with the public is bound to trigger more action by lawmakers and the FCC.