Amazon built the Trojan Horse for your smart home | The Vergecast

Hello and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of omniirectional microphones. I'm your friend David Pierce and today on the show, has Amazon finally figured out smartome hardware? But first, here's everything else happening on The Verge today. I'm Travis Larch and this is 90 seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, October 28th, 2026. Have you ever wondered what would happen if Apple took the old MacBook Pro Touch Bar and made it an entire touch screen? Today, Apple finally caught up to basically every other laptop manufacturer and announced a new touchscreen MacBook Pro. It's got an OLED display and it starts at $2,899. But the glowing Apple logo is back. Also, you should take a look at this. The default desktop wallpaper is a series of white vertical lines that reminds me an awful lot of the cracked iPhone Duo screen. And I I don't know. Also in hardware news, Amazon announced a boatload of new Echo stuff today. The headliner is a smart home hub with a 16inch display. They also announced a studio speaker with a camera, an alarm clock, updated dots, and a digital photo frame that Amazon explicitly says only displays photos. Don't worry, it only displays photos. And finally, Virgin Galactic showed off its next ship for commercial space flight. It's [snorts] called Apperon, which Virgin Galactic says is from the ancient Greek for Boundless. The name Apperon won in a public vote against Horizon, Explorer, and Ascend. But does this poll really reflect the voice of the people if spaceshippy mix spaceship face wasn't an option? You can read more at the verge.com. That's 90 seconds on the Verge for Wednesday, October 28th, 2026. Over the last few weeks, Amazon has been shipping a lot of new devices. New Kindles, new cameras, new tablets, lots of new things, but the biggest news so far is a bunch of new Echo devices. Amazon's true centerpiece Alexa smart home devices. By the way, we're going to say Alexa a lot in this episode, so go ahead and mute any nearby Amazon microphones. Sorry in advance. Genui on our team has seen all of the new devices, including one that I think might be the best evidence yet that Amazon finally knows what people want from the smart home. She's seen them all. She's touched them all. She's going to come on and tell us about it. Let's do it. Jen Tui, welcome back to the show. >> Hello. Hello, David. Very happy to be here. The Echo Show 16, I think, strikes me as maybe the most interesting and important Echo device that has launched in a very long time. There's a bunch of new hardware. I want to talk through all of the new hardware, but there there is something interesting happening on the Amazon hardware team, particularly with Alexa, and I think the Echo Show 16 to me is like the the biggest new kind of swing from Amazon in a very long time. So, first can you just tell me a little bit about this device and if you think it's as big a deal as I do? >> This is sort of the the smart display I've always hoped that they would make. That was and I think because the I don't want to get too much in the history of the smart display, but most people if you if you remember the original smart display, it wasn't designed to be touched. It wasn't designed it wasn't a an iPad or a tablet. It was just a a visual to see your voice assistant. Um, so it was always a bit frustrating because you had this beautiful screen that you wanted to touch but um you couldn't well you could but it didn't do anything or it was very limited and it's taken many iterations and a full-on tablet hardware guy in panos pane from originally from Microsoft to bring us to a point where we are almost at a tablet here. It is not a tablet. It is not a pixel tablet. I'm sorry David if you were thinking that maybe this was the pixel tablet on Amazon's version. It's not there. >> It's close. It's close. It is [laughter] almost it's like one or two interesting weird ideas away from being a Pixel tablet which might be a good thing for Amazon [laughter] to be fair >> and also not as expensive. So although so that's that's the fine line here. This is a home device that you you know you maybe want to buy a couple of so it can't cost a fortune although it isn't cheap. Um so but yes it is a 16in um smart display but instead of a big bulbous speaker which most Echo shows have had since day one although they've morphed over the years to be a little more elegant. This has a very thin speaker behind it. So it basically it looks like a really small iMac [laughter] is actually what it looks like um when you have it on a countertop. Um so it has a little mount that you can buy that tilts and swivels. Um, and it's a very beautiful screen. There's a nanomat version. Um, of course, so it actually I spoke to Panos at the briefing and he said it was very much there's a lot of connection with the new Alexa tablet. Um, it looks very similar, >> but it is not a tablet. It is a smart display. Um, it is it is big. This was probably my I mean it was interesting last week I went and saw the um Apple Home View and my first thought was, "Wow, that's much smaller than I expected." And when they literally unveiled this, they pulled the sheet off. I was like, "Wow, that's a lot bigger than I was expecting." >> Yeah. 16 is not a small even as like if you're looking at it as sort of a kitchen television is still a pretty big thing. >> It is. It's it's a large device. Um and yes, that's I mean that's the reason here I would say for the size is it is a Fire TV. So this is a Fire TV. This is a smart home hub. This is a smart home dashboard. It also has a calendar and it can be wall-mounted or it can be on your kitchen counter or whichever counter you would like. And the size is a bit of a challenge I think from that perspective because it that's it's hard. You know, we talked about this at length when we're talking about the home view is like where do you find a place for devices like this? I think the wall mounting is is really interesting. I think we may find a lot of people want to go that way. Um because at its sort of core, it's designed as like a a family hub. Just that's it's it's it's graduating from a smart display into becoming sort of the hub of your family. And there's a really key new UI change that's going to I think that is really important here is that you can now choose one of four screens that just stay on your Echo Show. Instead of getting those rotating >> right >> um screens that they used to do like with Alexa suggestions, the occasional ad photos, now you can just have your calendar so it can be like a skylight calendar. You can just have your smart home manager so you can go up and press your buttons. you can just have your photos if you if that's what you want and you can just have a Fire TV um interface if you just want it to be your TV. So, yeah, it it's it's definitely an the evolution of the smart display. Um and I feel like it's gone all the way from really really simple to actually this is a full-on computer in your kitchen. [laughter] So, yes, but also this feels to me like Amazon finally figuring out what people actually want in their house, right? Like we we give Amazon a lot of crap about its just relentless Amazoning of everything. They're like, "Oh, any device that you want. Do you want to shop right now?" Is like actually not how people experience devices. But this to me is exactly exactly the way that you should handle a device like this in your house. It's like what I don't want is just a a screen randomly showing me stuff as I attempt to live my life. What I do want is to be able to have access to this kind of ambient computer and then when it's not doing its job, it does something else for me. Right? Like this is the thing. It's so much better to me that I can just say when this is not in use, I want it to be a photo frame and it will like just the the the hoops you have had to jump through to get this to do those basic things for you over time. And the idea with these computers, and I've I've talked about this with every person who has ever tried to make one of these, and I know you have too, it's like most of the time you're not using it. And and what it does when no one is using it is so incredibly important. decided that the thing to do when you're not using it is shows like [laughter] they finally looked at this and said, "Oh, what can this be when it's not being the home hub that it will be several times a day for you, but isn't going to be most of the time?" And again, we'll we'll see how they actually did this. There's a lot of like little things about the UI, but this to me strikes me as exactly the correct answer. >> Yeah, it is. I mean it is it feels right because you can customize it now. That was one of the problems before is like you you just got what Amazon gave you. There was a little bit of customization options but you never could just have what you wanted. And Panos even said this se several times at the event. He said this is what people have been asking for. You know we are doing what the customers want. And to be to be clear though, if you if you if you miss and love that weird rotating screen of random crap that [laughter] Amazon likes to put on the show, you can still have that. >> And also, please email us and explain yourself. [laughter] >> It is an option. And I I think it was a little hard to get a straight answer. I think the ads will also still be there, but only if you choose that one. >> If you don't choose that one, okay, >> you will not see anything. You won't see any suggestions. it'll just be the the uh three displays, the three options that we talked about. So, and then and it's got an So, you can just have it stay that way. So, if you just want your calendar to be there all the time, it can be that way. Or you can also have ambient mode. So, you can have your photos and then as you approach it will switch to your home screen. >> So, you have the option um which again this customization. These these are these are the key elements for this because as we've discussed in the past everyone's home use cases are completely different and how you're going to show a device like this where it's going to be how you're going to use it every home is going to use it in a different way. So to be able to customize it to your use case is really what's needed. And there's a new an interesting new feature that I haven't quite decided how I feel about. Um, but it's a new way you interact with Alexa Plus and it's called Amazon or Alexa cards. And so one of the screens you can have is just all of your interactions with Alexa Plus as cards. Um, so it's basically bringing um it's like so when you you use Chat GBT, you'll have like a sidebar, right, with every conversation you've had. And what Amazon's doing here is every time you talk to Alexa Plus, it creates a little card for every every element you've discussed around one subject. So you can easily go back to them. Um, but it's presented very visually. Um, and these cards also show up in the Amazon Alexa app. Um, and then and through on any services that you go to. So you can always kind of go back. So if you're planning a trip, which which is what everyone does with AI, right? [laughter] >> That's what we that's what we use it for. you can just click back in and then it uses this is one of the new features of Alexa plus is it will pull in context and different um suggestions. So here is where we start veering into the advertising territory. So they showed um a chicken coupe. Someone was making a chicken coupe. I don't know if that was specially for me or not, but [laughter] >> I hear someone was making a chicken coop and I'm like, "Oh, they stole Jen's idea." Cool, cool, cool. Got it. And then as you scrolled through there were, you know, YouTube videos about making a chicken coop. And then there was, oh, you can go buy hardware cloth from Amazon for your chicken coop. So, you know, they were pulling pulling different things in suggestions, those those types of things. And then these cards, as I said, they sort of live anywhere that you go to access your Alexa plus. So, it this is whilst it's very much a home device, it's also really trying to encourage you to use Alexa Plus throughout your life. And it has the sort of personal context element as well, which um is is another sort of newish element for the Alexa devices. But I do think the size is a challenge. Um and it also means it's very expensive. I mean, this is not an inexpensive device with the nanomat screen, which is really nice. This was my first time seeing a nano display. >> It's really nice. Yeah. [laughter] >> Um but it's $570. I think $570 is too much. [laughter] >> Yeah, >> I think the >> $100 off if you pre-order it. So >> that's that's something. But it it starts at $400, right? >> Um so it's $4.99 for the non-nanomat display. Four $3.99 if you pre-order it. >> Okay. >> So it is. Um, I think the 3.99, the $100 off, you've got to think is ah, uh, what else is 3.99 that you might be considering buying right now [laughter] for your kitchen counter? >> Indeed. >> So, I mean, if you compare those two things, this has a lot more going for it um, overall, but Apple's device has that personal context, which Amazon is striving for, but hasn't achieved. And I haven't tried the home view yet. Um, so in my own home, I've just seen it and I do think that extension of your iPhone is still going to be sort of the killer feature there and that's something that Amazon just can't do. Um, but this has a lot more capability. >> That's the trade that I think is going to be so fascinating because Apple, the more I think about home view, >> uh, the more it's obvious that thing is just an accessory to your iPhone. Yes. which on the one hand is just a sort of obvious business decision from Apple, the company that [clears throat] makes and sells iPhones to give you yet another reason to buy an iPhone, but on the other hand is a is a choice to make, right? It gives them the personal context. It it brings in a bunch of apps. I still think the CarPlay integration is a stupid bad idea, but like you can see how it's sort of bootstrapping the home view through your iPhone in a way that is probably going to work for a lot of people. This is the exact opposite approach, right? They're saying, "We are throwing this is a a self-contained, massively powerful tablet for your house." >> And it's just going to be fascinating to actually get both of those into your house and see what it is like to live with them. >> Yeah. Yeah. And this actually runs a MediaTek processor. So, this wasn't even one of like Amazon's a chips. This is like a full-on I mean, they they really jumped jumped up the game here. Um, but again, you're paying for it and I just feel like that price point is going to be a tough sell. Part of me is like, could you have just done all of this on a 12 in tablet? That might have solved all of my problems the same way. >> And that's where I was. I mean, it does look great, but yeah, just on a big plinth. It's very different from on my dining room on my kitchen counter with the like bread and the the salt and the butter and everything around it. And it's like, ah, this thing's too big. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. 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So, can you just kind of walk me through the other devices they announced and start with the photo frame because this to me is like the exact example of the thing that I think Amazon has taken so long to get right that it is finally starting to get right. I know actually the photo frame is kind of like the complete opposite of this the show 16 but it's also exactly what people have been asking for. So I would say there are two people who have two types of people who use Echo smart displays. One is someone that wants to use it for their smart home and that's where it's very frustrating because it hasn't been that useful. Um, and then the other is I just want a photo frame, a digital photo frame that I can also set timers with and and like ask about the weather. Um, and for too long, a regular Echo Show didn't really do either of those things well because it's through ads in. Um, with this Echo frame, it is it is like an aura. It is like one of those digital photo frames you can go and buy for a few hundred just shows your pictures. But you can say, "Hey, a show me the pictures from my trip to Japan last year." And it will just bring up that album. So you don't have to pull up your phone, load the album. You can say, "Hey, show me pictures of David from school." And it will show you pictures, you know, it knows, it uses place and context. Um, so yeah, place and context like time, um, any other sort of metadata, I suppose, in the image that it can use as well as face recognition. And so you have to >> tell it, you have to flag people that you know and then so you can say, "Hey, bring up pictures of my daughter and it'll know who you're talking about." That is really I think that's going to be a really nice um feature. Uh it's very much designed for gifting, they kept saying. And with one thing they have is they've added um a voice memo. So when you upload a photo, you can upload a memo with it too. So your photos can talk to you. >> Ah, which is good. >> Kind of sweet. So then when you when you package it up, when you order it for grandma, you can attach a message and then she'll open it and there'll be a picture of you with a little Christmas message. It's like, yeah, you've sold a lot of people right there. [laughter] >> I'm absolutely convinced this thing is going to be a giant hit. >> Yeah, I think >> like it's it's just it's exactly what you said, right? It's a picture frame that can play music and set timers and >> I wouldn't probably listen to music on this, but some people will. [laughter] >> Yeah. Uh that's that's fair. I suspect it will not sound great, but I think just that basic idea, like even even the idea of, hey, look, I bought you this this Amazon Echo to use in your house. There's just a vast quantity of people who are like, what what do I what is that for? Why do I care? I have no I have no use for this. >> But I mean, photo frames are are do gang busters. Like, of course, it's for gifting. I think no one has ever bought themselves a photo frame, like an aura frame, but everyone has bought someone else one of these at some point. And so the idea of just taking this and being like, "Okay, this is this is sort of the Alexa Trojan horse into people's house because what they want is a photo frame and we're going to give it to them." And by the way, >> Amazon the the photo stuff is unlimited if you're a Prime subscriber. >> It's not a bad deal. Like the the photo interface on Amazon kind of sucks, but as a place to just dump your photos to have another place to have them if you're a Prime subscriber is a thing that I've recommended forever. Like just as a as a second backup. Just dump them all in there. It's free. It doesn't cost you anything. >> Doesn't cost anything. And you can >> That's a pretty powerful combination. >> And they were making the point that, you know, if you have an iPhone, as long as you just open the Alexa app like once a month, it can just suck in everything from your photos app. So, it's limit, you know, it shouldn't be a lot of friction. Um, and one thing, and I wrote about this actually in my recent review of Alexa, because this is on the current shows, but um the Alexa algorithms are able to sort of pair photos together. So because you know most photos you take a portrait right these [clears throat] days and portrait doesn't look great on a photo frame. So but what they do is they'll pair two portrait photos side by side but instead of just doing random two photos side by side it'll actually pull and I'll get pictures of my son when he was in kindergarten next to my son in college like it uses this really interesting algorithm to sort of pull um matching images from across your timeline. And that I it it actually a few times sort of I'm like I'm going to cry. [laughter] >> Yeah. I mean all it has to show you is your kid when they're little and your kid when you drop them off at college and every parent in the world [laughter] just goes to goes to mud. >> Yeah. You don't have to I mean I've spent countless hours of my 30s trying to sort through my photo albums and like do things like this myself and it just does it all for you. I mean and that's a killer feature. And there is no camera in this which is another reason people don't necessarily want the shows. Does have microphones and speakers because it plays this the voice memos and music. Um but you can mute the microphone. Um so if you know in terms of privacy if if you don't want a listening microphone but yeah it's a very it's as you say it's the Trojan horse I would say because it's it's still it's $200. Um so it's we have definitely moved away from cheap Amazon >> that does not exist anymore when it comes to these >> I want to come back to that in a minute because there there is some important shift that has happened here that I don't think is just about RAM prices and the cost of hardware like I think Amazon has made a big strategic shift in how it thinks about Alexa but before we get to that just run me very quickly through the other ones. [laughter] Yeah. >> Okay. So, we've got a um the new other new product is the Echo Time. And this is basically it looks like an Echo Dot with clock merged with an Echo Spot and got bigger. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Um so, if you round thing, flat face >> with a flat face and it's a screen. It's a three and a half inch screen. It's quite again quite big. Um I the Echo Spot is a little bit smaller. Um, and it comes in a few different colors. Uh, there's a pale pink. Um, and then some sort of kids themed ones that are sort of very vibrant. And it's just designed to be a clock. No camera. Um, it's basically an Echo Dot itself in terms of the internals, the new Echo Dot, which we'll talk about shortly. Um, so it's a smart home hub. It's got, you know, sounds good, good bass. Um, but then it is a clock and you can set your alarm on the screen. So, it's touchscreen. >> Nice. >> Um, it's also an Alexa smart speaker. Um, and it has a really neat, um, uh, they call it a smart alarm feature, and it uses onboard ultrasound sensing and a, a transducer to read your breathing patterns and micro movements um, and figure out when it's best to wake you up. So, if you set your alarm for like 7:00 a.m., the 30 minutes beforehand, it will monitor your breathing patterns to figure out when you're at the lightest stage of sleep and wake you up then rather than hitting you when you're you know that you know you have that when you're sleeping. You're like you kind of get wakeful and then you go back to sleep and then you're like the deepest sleep ever and your alarm goes off and you're like, "Oh my god, my life is going [laughter] to be miserable today." And this is a whole category of product people like people you can buy the ones that'll do the the like slow increase in light over those 30 minutes. >> This also has that too. Oh, it does. Okay. Yes. So the screen can brighten gradually. So at night time all the blue light is taken out and it dims down and then in the morning when your alarm starts it will gradually using like a sunrise scene brighten to hopefully wake you wake you up. Because it's a smart home hub, Ziggb and Mattera, you can connect your smart bulbs in your bedroom and have those brighten at the same time. This is something we've seen a lot a lot of products offer. But yeah, this is doing all of that. It's a full-on smart alarm clock basically. >> This is another Trojan horse thing, right? Like that. That's the other day because a lot of people buy these smart alarm clocks. I've I've used them a few times. They're honestly great. like the >> like the hatch and the >> and they they had one that's basically looks like a big sun that just sits there and just sort of like blar light at you until you wake up in the morning. It's amazing and and it's the sort of thing that is >> too expensive for most people and it's expensive for the thing that it offers >> but it is it is a thing that you will buy anyway or at least some people will buy anyway. And again like I keep coming back to >> Amazon has had this idea that what everybody is going to want is Alexa everywhere. And what they've flipped here is they're like we're just going to put Alexa inside of things people already >> and that is such a good and better idea >> and it makes me so happy and we're finally out of this like everybody is going to blow up their lives to make their smart home better idea at [laughter] least with the like I'm I'm I'm over out over my skis on this changing the world here. But like [laughter] the idea that actually what we're going to do is just sort of nestle this stuff into people's homes and lives in ways that are just additive to devices they already want is such the correct idea for how to do [laughter] the smart home and I've been waiting for somebody to do this for so long and it just makes me very happy. So there's there's two more things to talk about. >> We can skip the Echo Dot because it's a better Echo Dot. Whatever it is, tell me about the studio with the home camera. [laughter] Okay, so the Echo Studio um has now got the option of a home camera. Um and this is the first Echo speaker with a camera. So you've only ever been able to get an Echo speaker smart displays with cameras. This is the first time they've put a camera in a speaker. It's a 13 megapixel camera. Um it's basically the same Echo Studio, so it's the same sound. Um but with this, the idea about the camera is it now brings visual ID. So visual ID is a feature on show devices. So when you approach the show, it knows who you are and it can give you your content. Again, this is what the home view offers. Um Alexa's idea of your content would be like your calendar. Um maybe your recipes that you saved, um your favorite movies, those types of things. Things that you've emailed to Alexa because you can now email content to Alexa. So, it doesn't have the same kind of um sell selling point as the the home view in terms of personal context, but they are moving that way. You can definitely see it. And that's why putting a camera in a speaker means you can have that visual ID without spending the extra money for a screen if you didn't want a screen. Um the I think the killer use case here is calling is a video calling device. So, what they demoed was Panos actually called his parents. >> Nice. And um you used you had the Echo Studio sitting on the TV console and then the the Fire TV became the screen. >> So you so you would just you the the camera was in the studio, not in your TV. Um but you could do video calling with your family through the through the larger screen in your home, which is kind of where you want to do that. So and this is we've seen was it the portal had this as an option. just about to say RIP to the Facebook portal [laughter] >> and that was a great feature that one. So this I could see this being the reason people would want to get this. Although the Echo Studio is $250, so it's not an inexpensive device, but you can pair it with your Fire TV as your TV speakers. >> It's essentially a soundar. >> It's a soundar with a camera in. >> So, you know, if you're not comfortable with the camera, you do not have to. There is an Echo Studio without the camera. Um, but that is that that was their sort of their main selling point. Um, and then they were also just the idea is this is also a camera in your home if you want to use it for pet cam or to check on your kids. It works that way. Um, and as an accessibility option and this was a point I've heard many times before about the Echo Show devices because you can hold things up to Alexa and say, "What is this?" which can be useful for low vision. I think we've actually had someone on the Vergecast talking about this many years ago. Um, and he said, "But the problem with people buying Echo Shows who are visually impaired is they don't need a screen. So why are we why are they spending the money on a screen?" So now that was one reason that they gave for putting a camera in um the smart speaker. I it's going to be interesting to see if this sort of catches on because I feel like if you do a lot of Alexa video calling, you're probably going to be using a show. Um, and the idea of sticking a camera in your soundbar, as you say, essentially your soundbar, your is is I don't know. [laughter] >> Yeah, this is >> people don't really like being watched when they're watching TV. But >> yeah, of all of these announcements, this is the one that I I find sort of least compelling in my own house just because >> the place to put this is, like you said, it's under your TV staring at you on the couch >> and that's just [laughter] that's just complicated. Um, my guess is this will be the sort of thing that appeals to a relatively small number of people, but that small number of people will find it vastly useful. >> They're going to want it. Yeah. >> And most of those people are Amazon employees. [laughter] Like like you just said, you're like, "Oh, if you're a heavy user of Alexa calling," and I'm like, "Amazon employees." Like that's luckily there's a lot of them, I guess. I don't [laughter] know. It'll be fine. Um, before I let you go, I I do want to talk about the the hardware strategy here just for a second. We we've talked about almost exclusively very expensive devices, right? And this is a selling >> like kind of cheap crap. Like the goal was never as inexpensively and ubiquitously as possible just dump hardware into your house, right? Like you just you just load Amazon.com and they'll give you an Echo Dot. Has been the case for like years. Uh >> this is very strategically different from that. Like there there's clearly a bet here that is like if if we make not cheap hardware that is so disposable that you'll end up with it by accident, but actually good high-end expensive hardware that that we can make a different move into your house. Do you think this is the right move for Amazon? This company is not I would say necessarily had a rich history of making terrific hardware. >> Do you think this is the right move? >> I do. This is speaking to their existing customers like people that use Alexa and love it. They always tell me this. Everyone that uses Alexa loves her her. They love to >> don't like that. Not a fan [laughter] panos. >> Um but I it's it's been frustrating because the capability that you're promised from these devices rarely actually works that way. And because they've been underpowered, and I've written this a few times, they've always I've always felt like the the possibilities were there, but the hardware was underpowered. So, you couldn't always do what you wanted to be able to do. Um, you were very much driven towards only using your voice, and that was not useful because up until a year ago, Amazon's voice assistant was rather difficult to communicate with. You had to use specific nomenclature. Now, you have that more natural conversational ability with Alexa Plus. um and the hardware to keep up with it. And a lot of this hardware uses their new Omnisense technology, which they talked about a lot at this presentation. They announced it last year, but we hadn't really heard much about it, but every device has the same sensors in. So, presence, humidity, temperature, and um so it the more devices you have around your house, the more context your smart home is being fed. And it and actually panel talked about this a lot. one of the both of the new um speakers, the Studio and the Dot, uses Omnisense in its new advanced surround sound system. Um it's got a fancy name, I forget it, but some sort of advanced audio like when you put the speakers in that in the room, it they know where you are in relation to them. >> Sure. >> So, and this also is supposed to help with them hearing you. Um so, the beam form beam forming microphones will kind of lock in on where you are to be able to just focus on what you're saying. And so apparently they should be a lot better at listening to you because that's probably one of the number one complaints you hear from Amazon Echo users is it doesn't listen to me properly. So I think it's it's meeting the improvements in hardware and meeting the customers where they want it to. Um as to Patus's point about the new interface too. I think that is what people have been asking for. Whether people are going to be able or willing to spend this amount of money on these devices is going to be the big question and that's the big gamble here because everything's more expensive. They talked about how, you know, with the RAM and chips, everything costs more right now. >> These aren't that expensive relatively when you think about that, but the Echo Dot is now $100. >> Um, and I, you know, it used to be 50. Um, so [laughter] everything has gone up or you know, doubled basically. So that's that's the real challenge. But you don't need seven or eight devices in your home. You could two or three of these devices would would easily work. So, um, depending on, you know, which rooms you wanted to use it in, but I feel like if you have, you know, you've got the, as you said, there's certain rooms that that most of these devices work. A couple dots around the house, the show 16 in the kitchen, and then the frame in the living room, and the um view, the time, sorry, echo time. I just can't quite >> It's tough. I [laughter] agree. I'm with you. >> In the bedroom. Um I mean it it does add up, but you also then have this sort of whole whole home system. Uh it's going to be I don't know. Would you You're quite a big Echo device user, aren't you, David? Which one would you buy? >> Oh, the Time is the one that immediately I'm like, this this just makes perfect sense to me because again, it it is not just convincing me that what I need is more echo speakers, more places. >> It solves a different problem, right? frames. I'm going to put this in your house is such an easy win all the time with grandparents that like I'm sure I'll end up doing that. >> But to me, I think the the big question for me is just going to be is the show too big? Um >> because I want exactly the thing it pretends to be. It's the reason I'm so excited about it, right? the kitchen TV slash sort of ambient what's going on during your day device that Echo shows have always almost kind of been but have never actually pulled off in a way that is sort of pleasing to use. If it can be that plus all of the other good reasons to have Alexa front and center in your kitchen, that thing becomes a device I will use many times every single day in a way that shows have always kind of annoyed me trying to solve that problem. But it is expensive. really really high bar $400 intro price I think is >> going to work for some people. Um but yeah, I think the we're we're due for a really fun home view versus Echo Show fight that is is very much about like what is the right way to do the smart home that uh I'm very excited to see. So you're going to have to come back when we can litigate that properly. All right. Jen, thank you. Good to see you. We'll do this again soon, I'm sure. >> Thank you. Bye. [music] >> Support for the show comes from Quint. We all have our favorite clothes we love to break out when things get a little chillier. Maybe it's that cool bomber jacket or the sweater that you could wear literally everyday. These are exactly the kinds of pieces that Quint specializes in. Quint offers highquality wardrobe essentials made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and marino wool. So, it's been about a year now since I started picking up Quint. And one of the things that they talk about is how they just offer those staples that end up being the things that you go to and grab in your closet time and time again. And honestly, it's kind of [music] true. For me, that's become the Mongolian cashmere quarters sweater I got towards the end of last fall. Now that these cooler nights are starting to come back, I'm just generally excited to reach into my closet and grab what became my old reliable for last year. Find your next fall favorites at Quint. Download the Quint app for app exclusive offers or go to quint.com/verge. Get free shipping on your order and 365day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's qu i nce.com/verge. [music] All right, before we go, I have one more thing for you. I just have a recommendation for a podcast. Presumably, you are here because you like podcasts. You should go listen to a podcast called Shell Game. It's made by a journalist called Evan Ratliff, who has been doing some really interesting AI experiments over the last couple of years. This is the third season of the show. the first season of the show, he spent a long time basically cloning his own voice and tricking other people with it. He's like deep down the well of how can people use AI for interesting and good and nefarious reasons. This season is all about slop. We we live in a moment where AI generated everything is suddenly taking over the universe and every person, every platform, every social app, every everybody is having to figure out what to do about it. Spotify just removed 50 million AI generated songs from its platform. Like, this is the scale of slop we're dealing with now, and it's only going to get worse. And Evan does a great job of diving into where slop comes from, why it has become such a bizarre phenomenon all over the place, and whether there's anything we can do about it, and frankly, if we even want to do anything about it. The the big bet that a lot of these companies are making is that ultimately, actually, we're going to be fine with slop. Yes, the music will be a little worse. Yes, you won't like the videos as much. Yes, this stuff won't be quite as creative. But are you going to watch Grock's version of the Odyssey instead of paying money to go see Christopher Nolan's version of the Odyssey? A lot of people are spending a lot of money betting that you are. We talk about this all the time on the show. We are we are dealing with this as people, as journalists, as as just the internet at large is going through this in such a big way. Shell Game does a really great job of diving into how all of this works and how it all makes us feel. Shell Game is one of those shows that doesn't have that many episodes that he does pretty tight seasons as they go. So, you can just blast through it in like an afternoon or a long drive if you're so inclined, but I really like the show. Evan does this stuff differently on his shows than a lot of people do. It's it's really fun to listen to. Even if this is the kind of thing you're steeped in anyway, so Shell Game, it's a podcast. I think you'll like it. And if you have other shows in this vein dealing with this kind of stuff that you want to recommend, I'm all ears. I am frankly in the market for some new tech podcasts. So, get at me. All right, that's it for the show. Thank you again to Jen for being here and thank you as always for watching and listening. If you have thoughts, feedback, questions, if you're going to buy one of these Echo devices, I want to know all about it. Email us vergecastverge.com. Call the hotline 866Verge11. We love hearing from you. And as a reminder, the best thing you can do to support everything we're doing here at the Verge is to subscribe to The Verge. [music] The verge.com/subscribe. You get all of our podcasts ad free, including this one. You get all of our exclusive newsletters, including my one installer where Shell Game is going to be this week. You get everything we're doing. The verge.com/subscribe. [music] Thank you in advance. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kefir, and Travis Laruk. See you tomorrow. Rock and roll. [music]