Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo is a new smart speaker product from Amazon that combines voice recognition “intelligent assistant” capabilities with speaker functionality in a cylindrical speaker form factor.

Amazon Echo’s Alexa intelligent assistant capabilities mimic those of Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana, and it features seven different microphones with beam-forming technology for picking up voice requests and commands from any direction and any location in a room.

How Amazon Echo Works and Its Speaker Functionality

Amazon Echo responds to voice control by returning information on products, music, news, weather, sports and more. The back-end engine for Amazon Echo runs on Amazon Web Services in the cloud, enabling it to learn an individual or family’s preferences and expand its functionality over time.

As a portable speaker, Amazon Echo’s dual downward-firing speakers play audio with hands-free voice control for Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Music, iHeartRadio and TuneIn. Echo also features Bluetooth capabilities that enable it to stream music services such as iTunes, Pandora and Spotify from smartphones, tablets and similar mobile devices.

Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Dot

Amazon Echo currently retails for $179 after debuting in mid-2015 at an initial retail price of $199. The Echo product line has also since expanded to include a more portable, battery-operated device called the Echo Tap, and a smaller, sleeker version of the Echo called the Echo Dot that sells for $50.

Forrest Stroud
Forrest Stroud
Forrest is a writer for Webopedia. Experienced, entrepreneurial, and well-rounded, he has 15+ years covering technology, business software, website design, programming, and more.
Get the Free Newsletter
Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
This email address is invalid.
Get the Free Newsletter
Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
This email address is invalid.

Related Articles

Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts a device's Internet access through a secure server. It is most frequently used for remote employees accessing a...

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule and shows the dependency between tasks and the current schedule...

Input Sanitization

Input sanitization is a cybersecurity measure of checking, cleaning, and filtering data inputs from users, APIs, and web services of any unwanted characters and...

IT Asset Management Software

IT asset management software (ITAM software) is an application for organizing, recording, and tracking all of an organization s hardware and software assets throughout...

ScalaHosting

ScalaHosting is a leading managed hosting provider that offers secure, scalable, and affordable...

HRIS

Human resources information system (HRIS) solutions help businesses manage multiple facets of their...

Best Managed Service Providers...

In today's business world, managed services are more critical than ever. They can...