Amazon Echo, a wireless speaker that also features a personal voice assistant was debuted in November. It was exclusively made available for Amazon Prime members for $99 but with a limited supply. Now, it is finally available for preorders to all users for $179. The shipping of Amazon Echo will begin from July 14.

The Amazon Echo weighs 1045 grams and it measures 235 x 83.5 x 83.5 mm. It supports connectivity through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The Amazon Echo can spring into action with voice commands like ‘Alexa’ or ‘Hey, Alexa.’ Under the device, there are seven microphones that enable it to hear voice commands from any direction.

According to the key features of Echo that are listed on Amazon, by pairing it with home system such as WeMo from Belkin and Hue from Philips, it can be used to control various appliances around the house. It can play songs from Pandora and Amazon Music. With voice commands, songs can be skipped; volume can be increased or decreased and so on.

As far as sound output is concerned, Echo has been optimized to deliver dynamic bass response and impressive sound experience. It is fitted with a 2.5-inch woofer and 2-inch tweeter.

By using the Amazon Echo companion app available for FireOS, Android And iOS, and internet browsers users can use the app to set alarms and to add items to the shopping cart on Amazon. By connecting to Google Calendar, it can check events. Echo can be used to read books with sound through Audible. It can provide answers to questions on almost any subject.

It can also tell the user about the latest traffic information. It can provide updates on the latest news, weather and sports scores and news. The Verge claims that in the past seven months, Amazon has enhanced speech recognition and accuracy on the Echo speaker.

Amazon claims that the more Echo is used, the smarter it becomes in understanding speech patterns and vocabulary. Since the speaker is always connected to the cloud, it is able to receive updates automatically.

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