Amazon Prepping Alexa-Powered Wireless Earbuds
- Paul Thurrott
- Apr 05, 2019
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11
According to a new report, Amazon plans to ship Alexa-powered wireless earbuds in late 2019 to take on Apple’s AirPods.
“The headphones will look and act similar to AirPods, but people working on the product inside Amazon are striving for better audio quality, the people said,” a Bloomberg report explains. “Like the AirPods, the Amazon earbuds are designed to sit inside users’ ears without clips around the ear.”
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The Amazon earbuds are notable for another reason: They will be Amazon’s first Alexa-powered wearable product.
As you might expect, the earbuds will allow users to order goods from Amazon.com, and access music, weather, and other information. But in addition to voice control, the earbuds will also support gestures, including the ability to pick up and end calls with a tap. They will reportedly work with both iPhones and Android handsets.
As with AirPods and other wireless earbuds, the Amazon earbuds will come with a charging case. It will charge via USB, not Qi wireless charging pads.
As for timing, it’s unclear. Bloomberg says that Amazon originally wanted to ship the product by now but suffered development delays. But it typically launches new consumer electronic products in September.
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Conversation 11 comments
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BrianEricFord
<p>To say that these are going to compete with AirPods is either Amazon being dumb or the media being dumb.</p><p><br></p><p>People who want AirPods — and it appears there are a lot of those people — are going to buy them regardless of what Amazon offers.</p><p><br></p><p>These will likely be competitive, but it’s going to come at the expense of all those smaller 3rd party manufacturers who similarly make cheap true wireless ear buds and who can’t possibly compete with the fact that Amazon owns online shopping in the US.</p><p><br></p><p>Alexa as a selling point? Meh. All of the digital assistants skip tracks and play and pause music. No one needs the alleged generational superiority of Alexa in a pair of ear buds. (Never-mind the fact that I don’t believe anyone needs it for any other reason, either.) </p><p><br></p><p>Here are Amazon’s biggest hurdles:</p><p><br></p><p>1) They don’t make a phone, which means — unlike Apple and Google and Samsung — they can’t develop anything that will make this pair effortlessly and stay connected reliably in the way those companies can.</p><p><br></p><p>2) Amazon’s dogged insistence on low price is to hardware quality as Apple’s dogged insistence on privacy is to services. </p><p><br></p><p>Put simply: Quality hardware simply isn’t in Amazon’s DNA.</p>
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BrianEricFord
<blockquote><em><a href="#418533">In reply to red.radar:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I would offer my wife’s third Kindle e-reader as a counter to your counter point. This one, at least, still works, but the screen light can’t be used because a small scratch on the display becomes a bright white backlit line across the screen if it’s on. (And also historical reviews. The Kindles aren’t ever going to win any design awards.)</p><p><br></p><p>Unless you’re taking about Kindle Fire, in which case you should apologize for trolling.</p>
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birju009
<p><a href="]https://www.meetfitnessindia.com/2019/06/dandruff-ke-karan-or-treatment-home-made-remedies.html" target="_blank">Amazon Alexa</a> Big offers </p>