Three years after the original model launched to little fanfare, the new Amazon Echo is here. Complete with improved speaker quality, a refreshed design, and the ability to customize it with different face plates, it’s available now for $99, or $80 less than the previous model.
One big new draw of the Echo is its ability to do SONOS-style multi-room audio, and you can take full advantage by buying three new Echoes for $247 with promo code ECHO3PACK.
For $50 more, you can opt for the Echo Plus, which looks like a silver-clad version of old Echo, but it supports better microphones and Dolby sound, and acts as a universal smart home hub for over 150 smart home devices. You also get a free Philips Hue bulb to get you started, which would cost about $50 on its own anyway.
<Takes a deep breath> In addition, Amazon announced the new Echo Spot, which is a $129 device with a 2.5" circular screen. It seems designed to be used as a very fancy alarm clock, but with Alexa and a video chat camera built in, there are a ton of possibilities. This one won’t ship until December, but you can preorder now.
On the home theater front, Amazon also unveiled a new Fire TV dongle that supports 4K at 60 frames per second, Dolby Atmos, HDR, and of course, Alexa. It’s $69, which is absolutely insane, and also nice.
You can (and probably should) bundle the new Fire TV with an Echo Dot for just $10 more (link not yet available). Or swap in the old Fire TV Stick, and get both for $59.
Deep cuts: The Echo Connect will launch in December, and lets you connect your landline to your Echo. I suspect none of you will buy it, but we’re completionists. We’re also waiting on a product link for Echo Buttons, which are literally buttons that connect to your Echo to play games, and supposedly some other stuff too.
New Amazon devices often sell out quickly, so if you want to get your hands on one of these before the second batch rolls off the assembly line, go get your orders in now.