Today, Amazon introduced Echo Show, a new device that brings a screen to Alexa. With Echo Show, customers can watch video flash briefings and YouTube, and see music lyrics, smart home cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, and more.
Alexa Skills on Echo Show
Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service, already powers voice experiences on Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Fire TV and all devices powered by the Alexa Voice Service. Alexa has over 12,000 skills.
All Alexa skills will automatically be available on Echo Show. Skills will display any skill cards you currently return in your response objects. This is very similar to how customers see your Alexa skill cards on the Alexa app, Fire TV, and Fire Tablet devices today. If no skill card is available, a default template shows the skill icon and skill name.
Amazon is also updating their Alexa Skills Kit that make it easy for developers to optimize their skills for the screen or connect smart home cameras to Alexa.
A few skills are already using the screen to provide delightful customer experiences. Echo Show includes updated skills from Allrecipes, Jeopardy, Uber, OpenTable, CNN, and more, as well as new smart home camera integrations from Ring and Arlo. Here’s what they are doing:
- Allrecipes shows customers recipe photographs and videos to help them prepare a meal, along with recipe search and filtering.
- Jeopardy! engages players by enabling them to view the clues and answers on Echo Show.
- Uber introduces trip details on the screen.
- OpenTable gives customers a visual confirmation of their reservation including table size and time.
- CNN allows customers to watch CNN video briefings that are updated every hour.
- Ring and Arlo offer compatible cameras that can show you the front door or monitor the baby’s room.
Amazon’s Echo Show will be released on June 28th 2017 but you can pre order it now.
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