Smarter Alexa+ powers Amazon’s new gadgets
The AI-driven Alexa+ assistant offers natural conversations instead of mechanical replies, as Amazon updates its Echo devices, Fire TV sets and Kindle Scribe.
Amazon has unveiled a refreshed lineup of devices in New York, designed to work with its new AI-powered assistant Alexa+. The showcase featured Echo speakers, Fire TV devices, a Kindle with a colour display and enhanced Ring and Blink cameras, all set to be released later this year.
After years of investment, the company is seeking to reignite interest in Alexa, adding AI to provide more personalisation and a natural conversational style instead of the more mechanical responses of earlier versions.
New silicon chips promise faster processing across Echo devices, while Ring cameras can now use AI to distinguish between a courier and a potential intruder.
Ring’s founder, Jamie Siminoff, who recently returned to Amazon, demonstrated how updated cameras can assist communities by helping to identify missing dogs through neighbourhood alerts. Siminoff described the effort as turning individual concerns into community action.
Ring devices will be priced between 60 and 350 dollars, depending on features, while Blink cameras now offer sharper resolution for indoor and outdoor monitoring.
Amazon’s device chief, Panos Panay, presented the new Kindle Scribe, a $630 tablet with stylus support, and the first Kindle with a colour screen, which offered a paper-like writing feel.
Updated Fire TV sets and a $40 streaming stick also integrate Alexa+, enabling users to search scenes or retrieve information about actors through voice commands instead of traditional menus.
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