Amazon appears to be readying a cheaper version of its popular Echo Dot speaker, if a tweet that showed up briefly on the company's Twitter account this morning is anything to go by.
The voice-controlled smart speaker that houses Amazon's personal assistant Alexa was announced back in March, costing $89.99, and is a smaller, palm-sized expansion to the company's flagship Echo product that lets users expand the capabilities of the latter device to different rooms of their house.
Now it seems Amazon is almost set to offer a cheaper "all-new" version of the Dot at $49.99. The tweet, which was quickly deleted from the company's Twitter account but picked up by some users, linked to Amazon's existing page for the Echo Dot, which is currently sold out.
Apparently not? @amazonecho: Introducing the all-new Echo Dot. Add Alexa to any room - now for just $49.99. https://t.co/AQkwY5xbHh/s/Z-sj — Darrin (@Indypodcaster) September 12, 2016
Recode queried the deleted tweet with Amazon spokespeople but they declined to comment, suggesting the pre-emptive tweet was a genuine accident.
It's not the first social media announcement blunder we've seen this month. Last week, during Apple's "See You on the 7th" event in San Francisco, Apple's re-animated Twitter account began posting video clips of the new iPhone 7 complete with pre-order links before the phone had even been mentioned on stage. Amazon was also guilty of briefly taking its iPhone 7 accessories landing page live before the event had started.
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I used to use my phone to do so many of these things, but when your hands are busy doing other things (or covered in food when making or cleaning up dinner) it is way better. We tried using Siri though an iPad for many of these things, but because the microphone really only worked in one direction (as opposed to 360 degrees like the echo) it wasn't a great user experience. This. Just. Works. And just about every DIY major home automation system out there works with Echo.
Don't get me wrong, these new "assistants" are interesting tech, but don't serve my needs at all. That's clearly not the case for others.