Ever since Amazon made Alexa available for any manufacturer to integrate into their hardware, we’ve seen several new Alexa-enabled products, but most of them were missing one of the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot’s best features, which is always-listening capabilities for hands free interaction with Alexa. That’s not the case with GE’s new LED table lamp. It’s essentially an Echo Dot with a large LED light ring attached to the top. It can do everything the Echo Dot can do, plus light up a room, which of course can be controlled hands free via Alexa.
GE’s lamp doesn’t have a name yet, but it’ll be part of their “C by GE” collection of products. In addition to the white LED light, the product has a second blue light ring that lights up when Alexa is listening or responding, just like the ring of lights on top of the Amazon Echo. The white light ring turns on with a nice animation that starts on one end of the ring and moves through to the other end. The Blue light ring appears to pulse while Alexa speaks.
The product will be available for pre-order in early 2017. An exact release date has not been set, but GE expects it to be released between April and the end of June. Pricing has also not been revealed, but GE says it will cost less than the Amazon Echo’s $179.99 price. It’s probably pretty safe to assume it will cost more than the Echo Dot’s $49.99 price, so I expect it to fall somewhere in between.
I want a fire alarm/carbon monoxide detector/dot. Then I’d have mics in every room and it would integrate nicely with other home automation.
in the trailer commercial they mention that ” no separate switch hub or phone is needed”, it says no hub needed, n0 hub needed for what? does this thing have some kind of built in smart hub i wonder or they just mean for controlling the light itself cause in the commercial they are controlling other things
Maybe to control GE’s line of smart bulbs.