Amazon wants you to be surrounded with Alexa—wherever you are
The news: Amazon unveiled a dizzying number of new gadgets yesterday, including wireless ear phones (Echo Buds), a smart ring (Echo Loop), and smart glasses (Echo Frames). They all provide hands-free access, so you can ask Alexa to play a song, give you directions, or whatever else you may need, on the go.
What’s behind all this: Taking these three products together, there’s a clear push to move Alexa beyond the home, and onto your body. While Google Assistant is embedded into Android smartphones, people currently only use Alexa at home, and there’s no Amazon smartphone.
That’s a limitation Amazon wants to overcome, pushing deeper into people’s lives. As the first to launch a home voice assistant, Amazon has a huge advantage over its competitors: more than 100 million Echo devices have been sold, and they are the default product many people think of when discussing smart speakers.