Amazon Eyes Video with New Echo Show and Fire TV Recast

Amazon announced plans last week to introduce a range of new devices intended for the automotive, home security, and premium audio markets. The Seattle-based tech giant also unveiled updated versions of its Echo Plus, Dot and Show smart speakers as well as other Alexa-powered devices including a wall clock and microwave oven. In addition to more than a dozen new voice-powered products, the company revealed the Fire TV Recast that enables consumers to view and record live television via a connected digital antenna. The content can be streamed inside and outside the user’s home.

Wired suggests that the new Echo Show is “a glimpse of Amazon’s vision for the TV of the future — whether that’s streaming video, over-the-air television, or casual games played on a large screen.”

When the Echo Show launched, it introduced a display to Amazon’s smart speakers with a wide range of possibilities. The updated $230 Show touts a larger 10-inch HD screen. An improved screen and relocated back speakers with improved audio quality “says a lot about how Amazon thinks we’re going to interact with TVs and streaming video in the near future.”

“The Echo Show is one of three product types (along with an Amazon Fire TV stick and a mobile app) that will work with a new gadget called the Fire TV Recast,” notes Wired. “This Recast doubles as a live TV tuner and a DVR. Tune the Recast to your local news station, or live sports, or anything else that’s available on over-the-air television, and you can cast it to your Echo Show’s display.”

Fire TV Recast also includes “an app that will help you find the spot that has the highest attenuation for your antenna, so you can place it appropriately,” explains TechCrunch. “The device then uses ‘an advanced wireless system,’ to deliver the streams to other connected devices. It can stream to your Fire TV, Echo Show, Echo Spot (the alarm clock) or even iOS and Android devices.”

For details regarding Amazon’s other new product announcements — including Echo Auto, Echo Input, Echo Sub, Alexa Guard, Amazon Smart Plug and, of course, the $60 AmazonBasics microwave — check out reports from The Verge and Wired. You may also want to read the following…

Related:
Amazon’s Blockbuster Alexa Event Made Zero Mention of Privacy Concerns, Recode, 9/20/18
Making Sense of Amazon’s Alexa Spaghetti Strategy, Bloomberg, 9/24/18
Amazon’s New Microwave: ‘Alexa, Please Defrost My Chicken’, The Wall Street Journal, 9/20/18
Amazon Taps Getty to Provide Images for Visual Searches on the Echo Show and Echo Spot, TechCrunch, 9/17/18
Amazon Comes Up With Another Way to Get Alexa Into Your Home, Bloomberg, 9/25/18
The Most Fun (and Useful) Things You Can Do With an Amazon Echo or Google Home, The New York Times, 9/19/18

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