After making the most failed mobile phone and the most successful smart speaker, Amazon revealed its next hardware ambition
April 29th, 2022

Since the launch of voice virtual assistant Alexa in 2014, Amazon has sold hundreds of millions of echo smart home devices, becoming the global sales king of smart speakers that can not be shaken by giants such as apple, Microsoft and Google.

Amazon once took Alexa voice assistant as the center, set off the storm of intelligent speaker landing, and ambitiously promoted the plan of using voice interactive connection to control everything. But as founder Bezos retreats behind the scenes, Amazon’s technology and business strategy around Alexa and hardware devices may change.

Dave limp is the top person in charge of all hardware and Alexa voice assistant businesses of Amazon and reports directly to current CEO Andy Jassy. Around many hot topics in the field of smart home, Dave Lee of the financial times came to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and had in-depth face-to-face exchanges with Dave limp, senior vice president of Amazon devices and services, including a lot of dry goods.

▲ Dave Lee (right) of the financial times and Dave limp (left), senior vice president of Amazon devices and services

During the conversation, Dave limp chatted about Amazon’s plan for ambient computing and talked about the difference between ambient computing and metauniverse. Compared with other peers who bet on the meta universe, Amazon pays more attention to real-world computing.

Environmental computing is a concept that smart home giants have respected for several years, but it is not as popular as the concepts of “whole house intelligence” and “meta universe”.

It depicts a future picture of science and technology: hardware, software and equipment are everywhere. They can perceive and even predict your needs at any time, and provide personalized services through data analysis; When you don’t need it, these devices will be “invisible”, so that you can hardly notice their existence.

Amazon sees environmental computing as a technology direction that will permanently change the shape of the world. Dave limp revealed that Amazon will carry out hundreds of millions of smart home operations every month, but more than a quarter of them are triggered automatically before the user gives instructions.

▲ echo smart speaker released by Amazon in 2014

As technology giants rush into this track, the focus of Amazon’s layout of intelligent hardware has shifted from realizing “everywhere” to answering a key question: how does Alexa make money for Amazon?

Dave limp responded to Alexa’s commercialization progress. He also talked about the transformation of Amazon’s business from the failed fire phone to Alexa, and shared his consideration of the “killer application” of Amazon’s home robot Astro.

Fire phone is Amazon’s first and only smartphone so far. It was released in 2014, and the market performance was very poor. But this failure, on the contrary, enabled Amazon to open the imagination of software and hardware outside the mobile phone - to build an Alexa centered smart device empire.

Amazon’s home robot ASTRO, launched last year, is one of the strangest hardware products it has ever released. It is like a long wheeled smart speaker with screen. In addition to all the functions supported by the smart speaker, it can patrol and supervise workers everywhere. (Amazon’s first home robot, super cute round eye flat face! 10 intelligent hardware are coming together)

▲ home assistant robot Astro released by Amazon in 2021

On the premise of not violating the original intention, Zhidong compiled this in-depth interview completely. The following is the actual record of the interview:

Dave limp: This is another user paradigm of how people interact with technology. Typing with QWERTY full keyboard, laptop or smartphone is a way for people to interact with technology that is very familiar and has been used for a long time.

Environmental computing is another way to interact with technology, which is different from the typing method mentioned above. Both the elderly and young people don’t need to read the instruction manual or teaching video to learn how to use this technology. As long as you stand next to it, you can interact with it.

Therefore, when you walk into the room where echo (Amazon smart speaker) is located, you can control the light by saying “turn on the light”. The whole process is very natural. You don’t need to read the user manual on how to turn on the light or how to play music.

It also has a feature that it disappears when not in use. This can lead to a role that can help family relationships, which is to stop you from looking at your mobile phone all the time. Many times, when I get home, my children will wear headphones everywhere and play with one or two electronic devices at the same time.

Dave limp: Yes, maybe it has something to do with parents. But the truth is: Environmental computing will stop you from immersing yourself in your mobile phone and enjoying your family time. This is also its broad definition.

For example, for us, the form of environmental computing is to install multiple echo devices around your house. Therefore, when you want to play music, you are actually saying “play music” and enjoy it together, rather than wearing headphones and listening to music yourself. When you are watching TV, you can say “turn on ESPN” and watch sports events with your family. Then when you don’t use it, it disappears into your life, so in this way, technology is not ubiquitous.

Dave limp: interestingly, we are trying to reduce our communication with Alexa. I remember when people first saw echo, their eyes lit up. Their expression was like, “God, it’s almost like magic.”. However, if Alexa can actively predict and complete your behavior, you will feel even more incredible.

We conduct hundreds of millions of smart home operations every month, but more than 1 / 4 of them are completed by echo before the user’s instructions are issued, and the user has not done anything

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