You decide: Is an Alexa-powered map of your home, inside and out, a good thing?
Amazon just dropped an entire lineup of new Echo devices, including an Echo Show 16, the Alexa Photo Frame, an Echo Studio with a Home Camera, an Echo Dot, and the Echo Time. But one of the biggest updates for Alexa smart home users has little to do with hardware, and more with how familiar the AI assistant wants to become with your home.
The new Alexa Home Map lets you create a 3D interactive map of your home’s interior and exterior, allowing you to navigate floors, zoom into rooms, and see the locations of all your devices, while controlling them in real time.
Also: Amazon’s new Echo Dot can turn into a Wi-Fi extender – how it works
The concept isn’t a novel idea for Amazon, but the Alexa Home Map elevates the experience offered by the Amazon Alexa app’s Map View feature, which we covered at launch three years ago. Map View lets you create a basic layout of the rooms inside your home to place and tap device icons.
The Amazon Echo Time is a brand-new bedside companion and a definite upgrade over the Echo Spot. It’s a rounded speaker with a display and no camera, designed to be the smartest combination of alarm clock and hub available.
Also: Amazon’s new Echo Studio gives Alexa+ an AI camera to see inside your home
This new speaker doubles as a smart home hub, since it supports Zigbee and Matter, and acts as a Thread border router.
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