Amazon is reportedly working on a pair of wireless buds powered by its virtual assistant Alexa.
It's believed to rival the AirPods made by Apple, who recently launched a second iteration of the product.
Amazon Wireless Earbuds
Citing "people with knowledge of the plans," Bloomberg reports that Amazon is going to roll out earbuds that are similar to the AirPods in terms of appearance and functionality. However, the team behind it is aiming for "better audio quality."
Alexa will work as expected, where users can activate the assistant by saying "Alexa" and issue voice commands and ask about things like the weather, music, and more. What's more, there will be gesture controls too, including tapping to pick up or drop a call and to switch between music tracks.
However, the earbuds won't have cellular connectivity, and users will have to pair them with a smartphone via Bluetooth.
They're going to come with a charging case that uses a standard USB cable for power. In comparison, the AirPods 2 is available with either a wired or a wireless charging case.
The retailer has tested the earbuds in black and gray, meaning that these could be part of the available color options when they launch.
Now they're said to hit the shelves sometime during the second half of 2019, but Amazon has reportedly been running into delays, looking for suppliers and manufacturing partners. It's also worth noting that the company took the wraps off a couple of its hardware products in September in the previous year, which means it could unveil the Alexa-powered wireless earbuds in September 2019.
There's no word on how much it's going to cost, but Amazon is known for its competitive pricing. Put differently, its wireless earbuds are likely to be priced well below the AirPods, which is at $159 or $199 depending on the case it's bundled with.
