Category: Technology

When it comes to new Echo speakers, Amazon rarely has something to show that will appeal to its customers who crave premium sound quality. The last time it did, it debuted the Echo Studio that could handle immersive Dolby Atmos and double as a home theater speaker. At its hardware event in NYC today, Amazon unveiled an updated Echo Studio with new drivers, a new chip and an all-new design. 

Amazon says the new model offers “incredible high fidelity sound” thanks to three full-range drivers and an excursion woofer for maximum bass. Like the original Studio, this speaker is designed for Dolby Atmos content, which is available across both movies and music. There’s a new AZ23 Pro chip inside as well, silicon that’s built to power audio features and Alexa+ on the new Studio. Amazon says the component offers advanced speech and audio processing — as well as visual processing on the new Echo Show lineup. 

The company also updated the Echo Studio design, ditching the large cylinder for the more spherical shape. The blueish light ring for Alexa is now on the front instead of the top. The controls are now on the front as well, where you’ll find buttons for volume and muting the microphones. Overall, the new Echo Studio is 40 percent smaller than the original and is now covered in a 3D knit fabric for acoustic transparency.

Amazon also announced Alexa Home Theater during its reveal of the Echo Studio. This feature allows you to connect up to five Echo Studio or Echo Dot Max devices to create a more immersive sound setup. The company promises that you’ll simply plug in the speakers and Alexa will handle the rest. The assistant will use OmniSense to automatically tune the speakers based on position, the size of the room and the space’s acoustic characteristics. As you might expect, Amazon plans to sell these new speakers in Alexa Home Theater bundles so you don’t have to spend too much time shopping for a multi-speaker system. 

The new Echo Studio is available for pre-order today for $220, and early adopters will get Alexa+ Early Access with the purchase. The new speaker will ship on October 29.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/amazon-reveals-an-updated-echo-studio-speaker-with-a-new-chip-and-upgraded-drivers-150303898.html?src=rss 

Robot vacuums are more than just a gimmick. Sure, we all enjoy anthropomorphizing a Roomba from time to time, but they’re not gadgets for the sake of gadgetry — keeping your living space clean is an incredibly rewarding task to automate. The only problem is that both robot vacuums and all decent vacuums, are expensive. Fortunately, the steep discounts offered on Amazon this October Prime Day make the purchase a lot more justifiable, whether you want a robot buddy or a traditional vacuum cleaner. In this article, we’re sharing a constantly updated list of vacuum discounts worth taking advantage of.

Best Prime Day vacuum deals

iRobot Roomba 104 Vac for $150 (40 percent off, Prime exclusive): This entry-level Roomba is a good pick for anyone who’s new to owning a robot vacuum. It features a multi-surface brush and an edge-sweeping brush to clean all types of flooring, and it uses LiDAR navigation to avoid obstacles as it goes. The iRobot mobile app lets you control the robot, set cleaning schedules and more.

Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 for $300 (57 percent off, Prime exclusive): The Shark Matrix Plus takes the robot vacuum concept even further by working a mop into the design for hands-off wet cleaning. This model is self-cleaning, self-emptying, self-charging and capable of tackling ground-in stains on hard floors.

Shark Navigator Lift-Away Deluxe for $160 (27 percent off): Moving into manual vacuums, let’s start with one of the best. The Shark Navigator Lift-Away is a champion at getting deeply ingrained crud out of carpets, but it’s also capable of squaring away bare floors. You can switch between the two settings quickly, and the lift-away canister makes it easy to empty.

Levoit LVAC-300 cordless vacuum for $250 ($100 off, Prime exclusive): One of our favorite cordless vacuums, this Levoit machine has great handling, strong suction power for its price and a premium-feeling design. Its bin isn’t too small, it has HEPA filtration and its battery life should be more than enough for you to clean your whole home many times over before it needs a recharge.

Dyson Ball Animal Total Clean Upright Vacuum for $500 (24 percent off): Dyson is still the king of reinventing vacuums, and the bagless, hyper-maneuverable Ball Animal is a blast to use. The Ball design is based on ease of steering, but the hidden MVP is the sealing — from the head to the canister, not a hair is getting out of this one once it’s in.

Amazon Basics Upright Bagless Vacuum Cleaner for $55 (21 percent off): All right, nobody goes to Amazon Basics to be impressed, but we have to admit this vacuum exceeds expectations. It’s light, it has a big dust reservoir and it comes with all the attachments you’ll need for a reasonably sized apartment. The filter is also simple to remove and clean.

Black+Decker QuickClean Cordless Handheld Vacuum for $27 (33 percent off): Rounding out the list, we’ve got this small-but-mighty hand vacuum, perfect for crevices, shelves or cleaning out your car. It weighs about 1.4 pounds and hoovers up small messes in the blink of an eye. The lithium-ion battery stays charged for up to 10 hours.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-best-october-prime-day-vacuum-deals-you-can-get-now-save-on-machines-from-shark-irobot-dyson-and-more-151504364.html?src=rss 

During its invite-only and not live-streamed Devices and Services event today out of New York City, Amazon announced its upcoming Ring and Blink devices, new Fire TVs and streaming sticks, Kindle Scribes and, finally, a whole new Echo device lineup — including new Echo Show smart displays. The latest smart-home screens were built to showcase Alexa+, the new and AI-improved smart assistant.

There’s a new Echo Show 8, an Echo Show 11. Amazon called them the most powerful Echo devices ever created. They have custom silicon, advanced sensors and improved microphones for better noise cancellation. They’re also redesigned and meant to fade into the background.

Both of the new displays have negative liquid crystal screens that are designed to maximize viewing angles, so you can see them better from anywhere in a room. They each have 13MP cameras as well, which is the best camera ever included on an Echo Show. The base on which the screen sits also houses the speaker, which projects sound out and around the display so it better fills the room.

The Echo Show 8 and Show 11 were redesigned with Alexa+ in mind, the service that Amazon revealed at an event earlier this year. The AI-enhanced upgrade to Amazon’s virtual assistant is supposed to be more conversational, retaining memories of your chats for more contextualized responses. Our experience with an early version of the assistant was… complicated. It was better at many things like multi-step tasks and using information from previous interactions, but it, like all AI-experiences, highlighted the limitations of computers trying to be people. Alexa+ is currently free with Prime, or costs $20 per month for non-Prime members.

Prior to the announcement of the new display, the Echo Show lineup consisted of four models: The Echo Show 5, 8, 15 and 21 (the Echo Show 10 hasn’t been consistently available these past few months). Each model number refers to the size of the screen (measured on the diagonal) and the smallest, the Echo Show 5, is designed for office desks or small kitchens. The slightly larger Show 8 is more suited to acting as a smart home hub and, like the Echo Show 5, is designed to sit on a table or countertop. Both were last updated in 2023. The Show 15 and 21 are wall-mountable and can act as calendars and family planners in addition to subbing in as small TVs when needed. The two larger Show displays were last updated in 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/amazon-just-announced-a-totally-redesigned-echo-show-8-and-echo-show-11-145937172.html?src=rss 

If you’re looking to replace your old alarm clock with an Alexa-powered modern smart alternative then, well, you’re more overwhelmed with options than ever. But a $30 saving on last year’s updated Echo Spot might make your decision a bit easier.

The latest incarnation of the diminutive Spot was introduced in July 2024, and while it’s not quite available for its record low price of $45 right now, $50 is pretty close. For that you get a comfortably bedside-sized device with a sharper display than its predecessor, as well as superior sound. The front face is divided into two halves, with a speaker positioned below the hemispherical display.

What screen you do have is more than enough to display the time and weather information, plus it can show you the song or album title and accompanying artwork when you’re listening to music on those improved speakers. It can naturally be used to boss around your other connected smart devices, too.

Alexa might be baked in, but the Echo Spot is intended to be a fairly bare-bones smart alarm clock, so don’t expect as many features as you’ll find on something like the Echo Show 5. But a lot of people just want a modern alarm clock, and arguably the biggest selling point for the Echo Spot is its total lack of a camera. While that means it can do less than the original 2017 Echo Spot, which Amazon did put a camera in, the decision to remove it from a device that lives right next to your bed was probably for the best.

Amazon’s Prime Day sale returns on October 7, so you can expect a range of deals on its various Echo devices. For our guide to all of the best early deals, head here.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazons-echo-spot-is-on-sale-for-50-ahead-of-prime-day-142550846.html?src=rss 

Today Amazon held its annual Devices and Services event, debuting its next generation of products. While Amazon isn’t live streaming the event, we’re on the floor sharing everything it announces in our live blog, including a slew of new Ring products and features. 

Take Ring retinal vision, rolling out retinal vision across Retinol 2K and 4K doorbells and cameras. It uses back-side illumination sensors for clear vision even in low light. Ring pairs these sensors with custom large aperture lenses that it claims will capture more light and maintain sharpness throughout the frame. 

This is a developing story…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/ring-announces-retinal-4k-vision-and-search-party-for-finding-pets-143314419.html?src=rss 

Before it began slowly trickling out Alexa+ to users at the start of February, Amazon promised a smarter, more conversational assistant. It turned out the reality was more complicated, and, more than anything, Alexa+ in its current state is a showcase of the limitations of generative AI. Of course, that’s not stopping from iterating on the digital assistant. During its “Devices and Services” event on Tuesday, Amazon announced a host of Alexa+ updates, with many of them enabling new integrations alongside the company’s brand new devices. 

One of those new features is Alexa+ Greetings, which will roll out to Ring’s new 2K and 4K devices this summer. With the help of Ring’s image recognition technology, Alexa+ will be able to make decisions about how to handle different visitors to your home. If it sees one of your friends or family members, it will know to greet them. When it comes to strangers, the digital assistant will ask questions of them to determine the purpose of their visit.    

Developing…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/alexa-at-amazons-2025-event-greetings-and-more-143211291.html?src=rss 

Since it began rolling out AI Mode at the start of March, Google has been slowly adding features to its dedicated search chatbot. Today, the company is releasing an update it hopes will make the tool more useful for visual searches.

If you’ve tried to use AI Mode since Google made it available to everyone in the US, you may have noticed it responds to questions about images with a lot of text. Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, admits it can be “silly” to see text in that context, and so the company has been working on applying AI Mode’s “query fan-out” technique to images. Now, when you prompt AI Mode to find you images of “moody but maximalist” bedrooms for instance, it’s better equipped to respond to that request, with an algorithm that will run multiple searches in the background to get a better understanding of exactly what it is you’re looking to find.

Google has built this feature to be multimodal, meaning you can start a conversation with an image or video. And as you can probably guess, Google believes these capabilities will be particularly useful in a shopping context. You could use AI Mode to shop before today, but Google argues the experience benefits greatly from the more visual responses the chatbot is able to generate. What’s more, it’s better able to make sense of tricky queries like “find me barrel jeans that aren’t too baggy.” Once AI Mode generates an initial response, you can ask follow-up questions to refine your search.

As with any Google update, it may take a few days for the company to roll out the updates it announced today to everyone. So be patient if you don’t see the new, more visual experience right away.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-ai-mode-gets-better-at-understanding-visual-prompts-130001201.html?src=rss