Amazon unveils an array of new products including its first home robot
Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley breaks down Amazon’s announcements on a slew of new products.
Video transcript
- I want to bring in our tech editor, Dan Howley, for a rundown of what they announced today. Sometimes, timing is everything. So, wondering if this has any impact on these product launches.
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. What's interesting is the slew of devices that they announced. Amazon seems to do this every year-- does do it every year during the fall, where they have a huge event for their Amazon Alexa and Echo lines of products. They've started to introduce Ring into that, and they announced a ton of stuff this year.
I think the biggest product that you have to talk about is their new Astro in-home robot. I'm not kidding. It is called Astro. It is, a robot and it rolls around your home. And it basically provides you with a means to not only securely monitor your home when you're not home via a periscope-style camera that comes out of the top of it and can see things like countertops-- look at the knobs on your stove to make sure that your oven is not on.
It also has the ability to let you video chat with people. If you are video chatting, it can follow you around so that, if you have to change over the laundry while you're having a video chat with someone, you'll still be able to be on screen with them. Or if you're video chatting with little kids, who tend to just disappear from the screen as soon as you say hello to them, it'll be able to follow them as well.
It's going to start at $999 and is part of the Amazon Day One program. So it's not going to be widely available. You have to sign up to be able to purchase it. But it is interesting. And they talk about how they have mapping set up so that it won't just catch on your couch and sit there for hours on end. It really does seem like an interesting product, but again, $999.
Outside of that, they also announced a new Echo Show 15. It's a 15.6 inch display that can be mounted to your wall or stand on its own on a stand. And basically, it's supposed to be your family hub. You'll put post-its there. You'll see everyone's schedule, the weather. You can do everything else that you can do with an Echo-- play music, ask Alexa anything you need.
They also announced, as part of the Ring program, their Ring Always Home Cam. And this is something they showed off last year. But now we know when it'll be coming, and how much. It'll be $249, and you'll be able to sign up to purchase it. And this is an in-home drone.
Basically, you could set it up to work with your Ring security system. And it will fly on its own. It'll take off from a little port that sits it sits in to charge, and then float around your house-- fly around your house and go towards anything. If it hears a noise, or your Ring system hears a noise, it'll go towards it. A broken window, things like that. Doors opening when they shouldn't. It will fly directly towards that.
If it doesn't, you can also use it remotely, and have it set up on different waypoints around your home. So literally, there's going to be a drone flying around your house. I desperately want that. My cats will destroy it. I just want to make sure that it's able to stand up to that. But $249-- not bad for a drone that's going to be in your house.
And you can see that camera there that's on it. When it's in the dock, the camera's not active. So I think that's going to be something else that's pretty interesting.
They also announced an Amazon smart thermostat. It's going to be $59-- way cheaper than what you get out of a smart thermostat from Google's Nest line. Those can be around $100-- a little more. So I think they're really going to be doing a lot of work there. And then they announced additions to Amazon's Halo line of products, those fitness trackers that can measure your body composition, listen to your tone of voice, get your heart rate, things along those lines.
They have a new one that really just looks like a Fitbit. It's got a display on it now. And they have a new Halo fitness program that you can sign up for, as well as Halo nutrition program that you can sign up for. Clearly, they want to be part of the health craze that's going on with Apple, and Apple Fitness, and the Apple Watch, and Fitbit, and Google, and their own offerings.
So a lot of huge announcements here out of Amazon. And interestingly enough, a lot of them are going to be available soon. So this is not going to be some kind of fly by night operation where they announce a product and it never sees the light of day. You will have a robot in your house soon, if you want.
- Really quick, any of them available in time for this holiday season?
DAN HOWLEY: They haven't set exact dates for a number of them. I would expect, probably, the Echo Show 15. That would likely be available, if I have to guess. I really want these drones, though. I mean, like I said, my cats are going to destroy the Always Home Cam that flies around. I want to see if it can survive it or not.
And I really want that robot just to say that I live in a home with a robot. But besides that, yeah. I think those are going to be a little bit further off than the holiday season.
