Amazon Echo, the nifty connected speaker that's becoming increasingly popular, is now finally available for purchase through Best Buy.
Amazon might have blown it with its Fire Phone or other such attempts, but its always-listening Amazon Echo with the Alexa digital assistant is definitely a hit and could be the next big thing after smartphones. The gadget has drawn a great deal of interest ever since its debut and it keeps gaining momentum, and wider availability should only make it more popular.
Now that Amazon is finally offering its Echo intelligent speaker through Best Buy and other retail outlets, interested customers have more options to make their purchase. Best Buy is selling the device at the same $179.99 price point as Amazon and currently has it in stock, ready to leave the warehouse in a day or so.
For those unfamiliar with the gadget, Amazon Echo is a smart speaker that's always listening for the user's voice, ready to carry out tasks through Alexa. The speaker has an impressively sensitive microphone setup that enables users to give Alexa voice commands even from across the room.
The Amazon Echo is also based in the cloud, which means that the speaker and its digital assistant can easily fetch you the content you have stored on your Amazon account, as well as give you updates on the news, weather, sports scores or other.
Moreover, one of the greatest things about the Amazon Echo is that it's constantly getting updates with new features and services, such as the recent integration with Nest thermostats.
Other recent updates also brought app enhancements, timers, alarms and more, making the Amazon Echo speaker and Alexa digital assistant increasingly useful and proficient.
Amazon Echo also got two siblings - the Echo Dot and the Amazon Tap, but they're not yet available through Best Buy.
The Amazon Tap is basically an Echo version on batteries, only listening to the user's voice after the tap of a button, as opposed to the always-listening Amazon Echo. The Tap version will be hitting Best Buy later this month.
The Echo Dot, meanwhile, is a smaller Echo version that features the same microphones, the smart features of Alexa, and it can connect to an existing speaker system to turn any audio system into a smart one. This gadget, however, needs to stay plugged in at all time. There's no word on when or if Best Buy will add the Echo Dot to its lineup.
