So this is crazy. Amazon’s new Echo Show 10 swivels on its base to follow you around the room. The on-board camera is capable of recognizing a person and spins around to follow them — essentially taking the person tracking feature found on Facebook’s Portal and Google’s Nest Hub Max to the next, creepier lever.
Amazon is quick to note — from a privacy perspective — that the device doesn’t identify people individually, so much as just recognizing the general shape of a person and spinning around in such a way that always keep the display facing them. Not sure how it works with multiple people, et all, but will be interesting to see in person. I’m also, frankly, wondering how useful a feature this is ultimately — and whether it’s worth that extra level of tracking.
Image Credits: Amazon
As the name implies, there’s a 10-inch HD touch display on board. That’s paired with a. 13-megapixel camera and a 2.1 audio system. Like the new Echo, it has Zigbee functionality built-in, so the device also serves as a smart home hub.
Amazon’s been adding a bunch of third-party software functionality to the Show in recent months, and the list now includes Zoom, Skype and, get this, Netflix. Those are all big wins int he era of working from home, but Netflix especially, since the Show was dealt a major blow when Google removed YouTube support from Echo devices.
The Echo Show 10 runs $250. That’s pretty expensive, as far as these smart screens go. I suspect a lot of what you’re paying for here is that pricy mechanism to follow you around as you move — for many, that addition is probably not worth the premium.
