Amazon Echo Club

[OtinG]

Apparently Amazon has an "idea team" but doesn't always run these ideas through a thorough marketing analysis nor produce market test prototypes. Smart companies will test the ideas out on potential customers before spending a ton of money and development. Apple has such a dedicated customer/fan base that they can often get away without doing that, but Amazon isn't Apple.

I'm reminded of the annual car shows in which the major car manufacturers show off prototypes and concept vehicles. They can gauge consumer reaction without having to engineer the entire vehicle. Most of those concepts never go beyond the mockups used at the auto shows. Amazon could probably benefit from building mockups and showing them to select consumer groups to gauge consumer response before committing to developing an untested idea.

[tubemonkey]

Hey Amazon, what happened? Where's Alexa AI?


Alexa’s New AI Brain Is Stuck in the Lab

Amazon is struggling to bring AI to Alexa

Alexa, what happened to your big AI upgrade?

Can Amazon Alexa's Claude AI Integration Really Be That Remarkable?

Amazon Alexa is about to turn 10, but its next-gen AI upgrade may have been delayed until 2025

[tubemonkey]

Amazon introduces Echo Show 21

its largest smart display ever—and all-new Echo Show 15

November 20, 2024

When we first added a screen to Echo devices, it changed the way customers interacted with Alexa, combining voice capabilities with glanceable information, to easily view things like the family calendar, reminders, trending news stories, and family photos. Customers particularly loved these devices for household organization and streaming video content. This inspired us to create an entirely new type of smart display with Echo Show 15—a beautiful wall-mountable ambient device that fits in naturally with any home décor and elevated what customers enjoy most about Echo Show and Fire TV.

The response was great—Echo Show 15 has a global star rating of 4.5 on Amazon—but customers told us they wanted better audio quality, and a larger screen to deliver an enhanced entertainment experience and provide even more room to see important information at a glance. So today, we’re upgrading Echo Show 15 and introducing Echo Show 21, our largest Echo Show yet, with nearly double the viewing area of Echo Show 15.

>> snip <<

Echo Show 15 ($299.99) and Echo Show 21 ($399.99) are now available and ship with an Alexa Voice Remote and wall mounting equipment. You can further customize your Echo Show 15 or 21 to fit your home décor with light brown or white frame accessories that snap around the edges ($34.99 for Echo Show 15 and $39.99 for Echo Show 21), or purchase a premium counter stand ($99.99).

more...

[booklover6]

Well is it just me or is Amazon scamming customers who want to trade in old devices? I turned in a 2016 fire tv stick, got the $3 and the 20% off notice. Was not applied to the Echo Spot that I just ordered. In the fine print it said the discount would be credited to me after the purchase. I've NEVER seen that before. Where is my $9.00? I am aggravated and will never trade in another device if this has changed. Used to be, you would get the 20% immediately!

[issybird]

Wow. I was curious so I took a look at the T&Cs.

Once your trade-in is accepted, you can place a new Qualifying Device (as defined below) in your cart and the 20% promotional credit will be automatically applied at checkout. Select customers will instead receive their 20% promotional credit as a rebate refund. If you qualify you can submit a trade-in order and purchase a Qualifying Device at full price. The 20% promotional credit will be automatically refunded back to your original payment method upon acceptance of your trade-in device.

Looks as if you're "select" and "qualified". Lucky you. I wouldn't have been looking for this in the fine print, either. Especially worrisome is that your discount is contingent on "acceptance of your trade-in device." Presumably that means they're reserving the option to reject the device and you don't get the discount. I also noted that you get only trade-in per quarter, now. Was that always the case?

All my Amazon devices are good enough. Just as well.

[booklover6]

I will be contacting CS about this when I have time. But as of right now, I will never do another "trade in for discount" again! Luckily the device I sent in hadn't been used in years and had no real value, to me.

So this afternoon I got a text and an email. Apparently the "discount "has turned into a "refund to the payment method." It's an annoying change, but at least I got my money back.

[ApK]

Does any one know how the Echo Pop compares to the Dot in terms of performance? Beyond what it says on the site. has anyone tried it? Does the mic seem to perform better than gen 2 and 3 Dot, for example? With the Cyber Monday sale, I' thinking of replacing some of our older devices with the smaller cheaper Pops.

[issybird]

@Alexa: How many Kindle books do I own? When was the last time I bought a paper book from Amazon? So why do you recommend that I purchase paper books on a nearly daily basis?

[Catlady]

Anyone using a battery base with an Echo Dot? Recommendations? Worth the money?

I currently have a gen 3 Dot, but might upgrade for portability.

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by issybird

@Alexa: How many Kindle books do I own? When was the last time I bought a paper book from Amazon? So why do you recommend that I purchase paper books on a nearly daily basis?

Same here!

I don't mind reminders of past purchases, sometimes I even buy 'em, but the books haven't come in a physical form in a long long time!