Amazon continues to dominate the smart home market with huge range of Alexa-enabled devices

Amazon has this week announced more Alexa-enabled and internet of things (IOT) devices that will be finding their way into your homes and pockets very soon. The new range includes a new Echo Dot, Echo Ear Buds and Echo Studio speaker, but also includes some stranger additions, like Echo Frames for glasses, an Echo thermostat and even a ‘Smart Oven'.

A total of nine new Echo devices were unveiled this week at Amazon's annual hardware event. The third-generation Echo Dot was one of the bigger announcements, with a digital clock sitting behind the speaker bezel, which also doubles as an alarm clock and can display weather information and any timers you set.

Another new product from the Echo range is the Echo Studio, a new high-end speaker system with subwoofer to rival the likes of Sonos and Apple's HomePod. The Echo Studio costs £190 and features three mid-range tweeters, a directional tweeter and a 5 ¼ inch bass driver to provide high-quality sound. The Echo Studio supports Dolby Atmos and a new Trueplay-like room adaption feature what uses the microphone to offer the greatest response depending on where its positioned in the room. If you reposition the speaker it takes around 10 seconds to calibrate again automatically.

Continuing the trend of audio devices, Amazon is also releasing the Echo Ear Buds. These are wireless and have Alexa built-in, in addition to IPX4 sweat/splash-proof protection and a £120 price tag.

Moving away from audio and into more niche territory, Amazon has also announced the Echo Frames. This is a pair of glasses with a microphone built in so that you can access Alexa or your smartphone's digital assistant without lifting your phone out of your pocket. For now, the Echo Frames are US-only and only support Android. Continuing this idea of more microphone enabled devices to control smart home functions is the Echo Flex. This is a £25 mini-speaker that plugs straight into a wall socket. The idea is that you'll buy a bunch of them for different rooms of your house and be able to freely walk around asking Alexa to adjust various smart home devices, like lightbulbs, thermostats, speakers etc.

If you have ever thought that our modern ovens just aren't smart enough, then Amazon apparently has a fix for that too. The Amazon Smart Oven comes with Alexa support, the ability to scan food packages for pre-set cooking instructions and triples as a convection oven, a microwave and an air fryer.

Finally, Echo Auto is now expanding to more US car manufacturers and the Amazon Eero Mesh WiFi Router is coming to the UK in 2019.

You can see the complete list of new Amazon devices, pricing and launch dates below:

• Echo Studio speaker system – £189.99 launches 7^th November.
• Echo Buds – £119.99 coming soon.
• Echo Frames – $179.99 Available by invitation only in the U.S currently.
• Echo Loop – $129.99 also invitation only.
• Echo Dot 3^rd generation – £59.99 launches 16^th October.
• Echo Flex – £24.99 launches 14^th November.
• Echo Glow – $29.99 Currently U.S only and launches on 20^th November.
• Echo Show 8 – £119.99 launches 21^st November.
• Echo Speaker Gen 3 – £89.99 launches 16^th October.
• Amazon Smart Oven – $249.99 currently U.S only launches 14^th November.
• Ring Fetch – Price and launch date TBC.
• Eero Router – £99.00 coming soon.
• Ring Stick Up Cam Lite – $199 launch date TBC.
• Ring Indoor Cam – £49 coming soon.
• Ring retrofit Alarm Kit – $199 launch date TBC.

KitGuru says: Amazon is continuing its march into the smart home market, expanding from small speakers all the way to Alexa-enabled glasses and ovens. Are many of you interested in the ‘Smart Home' concept? Is there anything here that you could see being useful for your own house? 

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