ECS is showing off its latest small form-factor computers at CES this week. That includes updates to existing models with newer, faster processors as well as a a few models with brand new features — including a mini PC with support for Amazon’s Alexa voice service and another that uses a camera and Intel’s Movidius hardware to recognize objects in real-time.

The company is also showing off its first mini PC designed to ship with an AMD Ryzen processor.

Here’s a roundup of some of the new systems ECS plans to ship this year.

Ecs Liva Q2 with Intel Gemini Lake

The Liva Q line of devices continue to be eye-catching. The new model isn’t that much different from its predecessors, but this palm-sized desktop computer will now be available with a choice of Intel Celeron N4000, Celeron N4100, or Pentium N5000 Gemini Lake processors, giving them a small performance bump over earlier models.

The little computers feature USB 3.1, USB 2.0 ports, and HDMI ports as well as a Gigabit Ethernet port and support for 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1. ECS will offer configurations with up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage, and there’s also a microSD card slot for up to 128GB of removable storage.

The whole thing measures just 2.8″ x 2.8″ x 1.3″.

ECS SF110-A320 (AMD) and Liva One H310 (Intel)

On the outside, these two computers look identical. But under the hood one features an Intel LGA 1151 socket for up to a 35 watt, 8th-gen Intel Core processor, and the other supports AMD Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, or Ryzen 7 processors (also up to 35 watts).

Both systems measure 8.1″ x 6.9″ x 1.3″ and have a decent range of ports that could be handy in home or business use, including DisplayPort, HDMI, VGA, Etherent, USB, audio, and Serial ports.

ECS Liva One with Amazon Alexa

There’s a new version of the ECS Liva One mini PC that features a dual-mic array with support for far-field voice detection. It comes with Amazon Alexa built in, allowing you to talk to your computer (and have it talk back).

In the demo area, ECS is showing this off with a mouse — you have to click the Alexa button before you talk. But voice-only input should work in less crowded environments.

ECS Liva M520 with Intel’s AI engine

The new Liva M520 is a compact computer with that’s powered by a relatively pokey Intel Celeron N3350 Apollo Lake processor. That’s a 6-watt, dual-core chip based on Intel Atom architecture. It was released on 2016.

But ECS is showing off a demo of the Liva M520 using machine learning algorithms to detect people walking through CES in real-time. It can recognize up to 6 people at once and track them as they move through space using imagery from a cheap webcam.

It does that by offloading the heavy lifting to an Intel Movidius chip which is designed specifically for this type of task, and the demo is using software developed by Intel.

Theoretically this could be used for a security system, autonomous robots or other objects that could benefit from AI-accelerated image recognition.

ECS Liva Z2 and Z2V

The latest Liva Z devices are 5.2″ x 4.6″ x 2.2″ computers with support for up to an Intel Pentium N5000 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 64GB of eMMC storage, and an optional 2.5 inch hard drive or SSD.

The two devices have similar specs, but a slightly different set of ports.

ECS Livas One Plus CL

This model measures 7.7″ x 7.2″ x 1.8″ and features an LGA 1151 socket for up to a 65 watt, 8th-gen Int4el Core processor.

It supports up to 32GB of RAM and has an M.2 slot for SATA or PCIe solid state storage.

press release

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One reply on “ECS is positioning its tiny Liva computers as AI machines (as well as commercial or entertainment PCs)”

  1. I got one of those Liva q 1st edition with N3350 4/32 and the micro sd slot can actually handle a 200gb card without a problem. The only thing is that I wish it had a couple more USB ports. 2 is barely enough and i end up having to connect a usb hub if I want to connect more than a keyboard and mouse

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