Amazon Introduces Alexa and the All-New Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot to India

Amazon announced that Alexa, the brain that powers Amazon Echo, is coming to India, along with three Alexa-enabled devices: Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot. Customers who want to help further the development of Alexa and the Echo family of devices may request an invitation to purchase devices beginning today at www.amazon.in. As a thank you, for a limited time, eligible customers will receive an introductory discount of 30% off the purchase price of Echo devices and one year of Prime membership. Devices will ship beginning the week of October 30.

.

Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot are voice-controlled speakers designed entirely around your voice—they are always ready, hands-free, and fast. Alexa is the brain behind Echo—since Alexa runs in the cloud, the service is always getting smarter. Just ask, and Alexa will answer questions, play music, read the news, set timers and alarms, check the calendar, provide sports scores, control lights at home, and much more. With Echo’s far-field voice control, you can do all this from across the room using just your voice.

In India, Alexa delivers a customised Indian experience, including an all-new English voice with local pronunciations and intonation; support for music titles, names, and places in additional non-English languages; local knowledge; and local skills from Indian developers. Third party developers in India are already building new, localised skills for Alexa, and over 10,000 skills will be available for customers in India, including skills from Saavn, Times of India, ESPNcricinfo, Ola, Freshmenu, and more.

“Tens of millions of customers are already using Alexa, and today we’re excited to bring her to India with an all-new experience designed from the ground up for our customers in India,” said Dave Limp, Senior Vice President, Amazon Devices and Services. “The combination of Alexa and Echo provides customers with hands-free access to music, weather, news, information, and more—just ask.”

Customers in the US, UK and Germany have left more than 100,000 5-star reviews for Echo and Echo Dot—here’s what they’re saying:

·         “I love, love, love Alexa. I use it every single day. I can't even count how many people I have recommended Echo to.”

·         “Echo is easy to setup and easy to use. I love it. Five stars out of five.”

·         “An ingenious device. Already firmly integrated into the family. Become indispensable. Great sound and beautiful design. A must have for every technology freak.”

Amazon Echo—The Hands-Free, Always On Speaker for just ₹9,999

Echo is a hands-free, voice-controlled speaker that allows you to access Alexa from anywhere in the room with far-field voice control. It uses on-device software to detect the wake word, “Alexa.” When Echo detects the wake word, the device’s light ring turns blue and begins streaming the request to the cloud where Alexa processes the request. Since Alexa is built in the cloud and leverages Amazon Web Services, the Alexa Voice Service is always getting smarter and adding more functionality.

2^nd Generation Far-Field Voice Recognition with Beam Forming Technology

Amazon Echo has an array of seven microphones that use beam-forming technology and noise cancellation so it can clearly hear you from across the room. This advanced beam-forming technology combines the signals from the individual microphones to suppress noise, reverberation, the music currently playing, and even competing speech to make sure Alexa clearly hears your request, even when in a noisy room.

Omnidirectional, Room-Filling Sound

Amazon Echo has been fine-tuned to deliver crisp vocals with dynamic bass response. Its 2.5” down-firing woofer, dedicated tweeter, Dolby processing, and 360° omni-directional audio deliver crisp vocals and dynamic bass throughout the room. Echo can stream music directly from popular music services such as Amazon Prime Music, Saavn, TuneIn, and more. Echo is also Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream music directly from your phone or tablet.

Designed to Disappear

Amazon Echo is designed to disappear into your home. Pick from a variety of shell colors and finishes to fit into your home’s décor—choices include charcoal, sandstone, and heather gray.