Under water ? Do not panic. The new connected screen Echo Show 15, which Amazon unveiled this Tuesday, promises, thanks to its customizable interface, to help each member of the family to manage their daily life, to control the connected objects of the household, but also to be entertained.
More than an assistant, a family hub
In addition to its now classic personal assistant functions with Alexa which answers all our questions, the Echo Show 15 is placed on a piece of furniture (or hangs on the wall in Landscape or Portrait mode). This new screen was designed to become the “digital heart” for the home, according to Amazon. Goal: to facilitate the organization of daily life.
For this, the home screen of Echo Show 15 will be separated into different boxes permanently displaying several widgets. You can control the display by voice or hang them on the 15.6 ” Full HD screen of Echo Show 15 in a tactile way. No more white slate and erasable markers that you hung on the fridge. It will suffice to say: “Alexa, give me a reminder for my 10 o’clock appointment at the dentist”.
Up to 10 video profiles
Thus, Amazon will offer a library of widgets dedicated and customizable that will be possible to place and adjust on the screen: calendar reminders, messages, shopping lists, recipes (with Marmiton), etc.
One of the promises of Echo Show 15 is also to adapt to each user of the household. Thanks to a facial configuration system, the device will recognize the person in front of it using its 5-megapixel camera. Echo Show 15 will automatically display its own custom interface.
Up to ten profiles can be supported, which is more than enough for the whole family. Amazon specifies that information about each person will not be hosted in the cloud, but locally encrypted for optimal confidentiality. We can therefore imagine that it will be possible to leave a reminder (written, audio or video) to such or such person of the house, who will be the only one able to access it when the time comes, simply by presenting himself in front of the Echo Show 5 who will recognize it. “Alexa, remind Valentine to call her grandmother for her birthday”.
We are curious to see how it will all work… Will there be a cacophony of widgets and other reminders at the time of family meals during which the whole household is gathered in front of the new Echo Show (probably no longer in its place in a kitchen)?
As usual, the Echo Show 15 camera and microphone can be deactivated using a physical button.
Streaming and connected monitoring
To go further, the Echo Show 5 interface can be used to display among its widgets video streaming (as with prime Video, Netflix, Molotov, etc.). The possibility of embedding in the main image a second image coming from an exterior or interior surveillance camera is announced. It should be the equivalent of a PIP function (Picture in Picture) to see who is ringing the doorbell (if you have a connected doorbell like the Ring Doorbell 4), or if baby is sleeping properly, without interrupting the program being viewed.
To achieve this new proposition, Amazon has developed a new processor named AZ2 Neural Engine. It is in particular he who allows facial identification locally and no longer on the cloud, as was the case with the Echo Show 10.
A concept that is not all fresh
Without specifying yet the release date of its Echo Show 15, Amazon already reveals the selling price: 249 euros (the same price as the Echo Show 10). Asked by 20 minutes, the manufacturer indicates that the new functions of the Echo Show 15 will eventually be integrated into the Echo Show 8 and 10. We imagine that an update is in the pipeline… It remains to be seen whether the public will be attracted by this concept of hub domestic which, however, is far from new. For several years, various manufacturers of household appliances such as Samsung or LG have integrated similar functions with their smart refrigerators (calendar, reminder, video streaming, etc.). But the price of these devices still made them inaccessible for the most part.