Amazon Expands Its Alexa Line

Amazon (AMZN) wants to be a part of every aspect of your life, and its latest move is just another step toward that goal. Last week, the company announced two new products in its Alexa line, in addition to some other updates.

Consumers already find the Amazon Echo, the first Alexa-fueled device, preferable to comparable Apple and Google devices, according to Argus Insights. So with two more options, Amazon’s position in the smart home industry will only get stronger.

Meet Amazon Tap and Echo Dot

The Amazon Tap has the same functionality as the Echo, but it’s a portable, battery-powered version. The battery lasts up to nine hours and lets you know when it’s about to run out of juice. The Tap doesn’t quite have the same far-field voice recognition as the Echo does, however. The reason why is it’s simply not practical for a battery-powered device to be using battery power to constantly “listen” for the “wake word.”

The Echo Dot, which is much smaller than the other two, has the far-field voice recognition but doesn’t have the full functionality of either the Echo or the Tap. You can use it to plug into other sound systems to provide better audio, use it as an alarm clock, get the weather, and more.

The Amazon Tap is available for anyone to pre-order, but the Echo Dot is currently available only to Prime subscribers. You can pre-order them for a late-March delivery.

The Fire phone flop was good for Alexa

This brings us, surprisingly, to the Amazon Fire phone — that silly novelty of a device that Amazon tried to sell at premium prices. It was never going to succeed. It was a mediocre phone, had a subpar app store (Amazon’s), and it required people to shift to AT&T to get the phone. (I know, I know. Apple did that, too, with its first iPhone. But with the smartphone market so saturated, why would anyone switch carriers for a phone that isn’t a million times better than all the other ones?)

The problem with apps like Siri and Google Now is that they’re only available on select devices. Now, if the Amazon Fire phone hadn’t been a failure, that’s probably what we’d get from Alexa, too. But the fact that the Fire phone did flop gave Amazon a reason to look for other ways to put its voice command software into practice.

Of course, that means buying another device in addition to the smartphone you already own, but average 4.4 star reviews on the product, it doesn’t sound like people are bothered by it.

Conclusion

Amazon is in a good position on the smart home scene. And while some may be bothered by the fact that it’s not available to use on a smartphone (you can control settings, play music and delete voice search requests, but not interact with Alexa), this software is meant to be the thing beyond the smartphone. And with two new products to add to its line, Amazon’s position just got better.