Amazon’s new Echo Show 10 smart display with a screen that moves so that it’s always looking at you like a pair of eyeballs from one of those creepy paintings is set to begin shipping later this month. But it might not be the only new Amazon Echo device coming this year.
Bloomberg reports that the company may launch a new model that’s designed to be wall mounted and which could serve as a controller for all your smart home devices, among other things. It might also have the largest display of any Echo-branded product to date. But it also might not launch until next year, if it launches at all.
Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.
- Amazon Plans Wall-Mounted Echo as Smart Home Command Center [Bloomberg]
Report: Amazon is working on a new Echo device designed to be a wall-mounted smart home controller with a 10-13 inch touchscreen display and support for the Alexa voice service. Expected to launch at the end of 2021 or 2022 for $250 or less. - Google Fi VPN updates help you connect safely [Google]
Google Fi VPN for Android phones exits beta, bringing “faster, stronger” private connections to subscribers of Google’s MVNO cellular network. Fi VPN is also coming to iPhone this spring. - Sony may hurt Xperia PRO sales by releasing this feature on the Xperia 1 II and Xperia 5 II [xda-developers]
A few weeks after unveiling the $2,500 Sony Xperia Pro 5G smartphone with only one thing that comes close to justifying the price – the ability to use it as a monitor for high-end cameras, it looks like Sony is bringing that to other phones via Android 11 update. - Alphabet’s VC Arm Backs OnePlus Co-Founder’s ‘Nothing’ Company [Bloomberg]
OnePlus founder Carl Pei’s new company is called Nothing. But they’re planning to launch something this year… starting with a pair of wireless headphones to be followed by other smart, connected gadgets to flesh out an ecosystem.
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Every “smart device” is always trying to be the hub for every other “smart device”.
In effect, the hub is Amazon or Google.
“Alphabet’s VC Arm Backs OnePlus Co-Founder’s ‘Nothing’ Company [Bloomberg” links to…. nothing….?
There’s plenty of people using Home Assistant, OpenHAB, etc with a stripped down cheap Kindle Fire inside a 3D printed enclosure as a home control wall panel. It makes sense for Amazon to make a device for the folks who’ve decided an Alexa/Zigbee only type hub is sufficient for their needs.