Amazon celebrates Alexa's birthday in Brazil with new Echo devices

You may not know it, but the Alexa's birthday in Brazil It's this Friday (06th). On this day, Amazon's personal assistant completes one year in the country, as well as the Echo line of devices and Amazon Music, the brand's music streaming service. 

To celebrate this iconic date for Amazon, the company held a “virtual birthday party” (with a special version of congratulations, cake and all), where there was a retrospective of the journey and milestones of the personal assistant and other products in the country.

“When we launched Alexa here in Brazil, in 2019, it was already much more powerful and connected than the one launched in 2014 in the United States, inheriting all the evolution of its first five years.”

Ricardo Garrido, director of Alexa in Brazil

The general manager for Amazon devices in Brazil, Jacques Benain, recalled the launch of the Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Show 5 and the other four devices in this line that were launched afterwards. This led to the announcement of the arrival of new Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with clock e Echo Show 10 to the country.

The company also launched the fire tv stick lite in Brazil. This device works as an input for Amazon's Full HD streaming hub, with HDR video support and Voice Remote Control that, of course, comes with Alexa built in.

Check out more details about Alexa and the new Amazon devices that arrive in the country below:

Alexa's Birthday in Brazil

Here, Alexa turns one year old. In this period, the director of Alexa in Brazil, Ricardo Garrido, says that the personal assistant made it easier to connect smart home devices. That's because between 2019 and 2020, a number of devices from other brands were launched with Alexa integrated or compatible with it.

The availability of skills in Amazon's personal assistant also grew during this period. It went from 300 (at the time of launch) to over 1.400 today. Among the most used by users are: cook pad (recipe skill), Million Show (game skill), Painted Chicken (skill to display the drawing) and horoscope. The most used were the cookpad and Show do Milhão, used more than 350 thousand times each.

Below is a list of other curious facts, reported by Amazon, related to Alexa:

• “Alexa, good morning!” it was said more than nine million times;
• “Alexa, what time is it?” was asked more than 3,5 million times;
• “Alexa, how is the weather?” was asked more than three million times;
• “Alexa, tell a joke?” it was said more than 4,5 million times;
• “Alexa, imitate Silvio Santos?” was asked more than 400 thousand times.

“We are very happy with how Alexa has gone so far, and we will continue to work hard to improve it even further.”

Ricardo Garrido, director of Alexa in Brazil

Just as we change with every birthday we complete, so does Amazon's personal assistant. In this case, Alexa underwent changes just before her birthday.

In September of this year, the company announced that it had enhanced to alexa, particularly on new Echo devices. Thanks to these advances, the personal assistant can now participate in a conversation with you and your acquaintances without having to use the “Alexa” command all the time.

Just say, "Alexa, join this conversation," and she'll begin to assess what people in the room are talking about, with the intelligence to understand when a question or comment was directed at her or someone else. When she is called, she will answer what she identifies that was asked or commented on.

The new devices with Amazon Alexa are manufactured with an even more powerful processor, called AZ1. It allows you to add revolutionary features to how Alexa works. Among them are:

Voice Profiles for Children: When listening to a child, Alexa automatically enters “Kid Mode” to offer specific activities to children at home;

Reading Aid: Alexa is now able to help children learn to read. As your child reads a story, she detects reading patterns and errors, to make recommendations such as “shall we read this page again?”;

Teach Alexa: It is now possible to teach Alexa directly. When Alexa doesn't know how to respond to the user, she will ask "what do you mean by that?". If you answer it, it will keep this information and can help you in the future.

New Amazon Echo

Echo devices are smart speakers, which come with Amazon's personal assistant built-in and allow connection to low-energy Bluetooth and Zigbee-compatible smart home devices. In addition to the AZ1 processor, a novelty in the devices is the design, which has been redesigned.

The new generation Echo comes with new design, spherical in shape, fabric finish with a glowing LED ring at the base. According to Amazon, the sound of the new Echo is better, thanks to the woofer three inches, two tweeters and Dolby processing that delivers stereo sound with high highs, dynamic mids and deep bass.

The smart speaker automatically adapts to the acoustics of your environment and adjust the audio. To do this, just ask to listen to your favorite music, for example, and the sound will automatically adapt to your space.

Another novelty is that the classic “tap to snooze” from the Echo Dot with watch is also available on the new Echo and the new generation Echo Dot.

In Brazil, the new Amazon Echo is available in black, white and blue, costing R$749.

Echo Dot

The new generation of Echo Dot has the same spherical design and fabric finish as the Echo. The device is compact, but has a powerful 1,6-inch front-facing speaker, which, according to Amazon, is capable of reproducing clear vocals and balanced bass.

The new Echo Dot is available in Brazil also in black, white and blue, costing R$399.

Echo Dot with Clock

Already the new Echo Dot with clock includes a simple, eye-catching LED display for quick information such as time, temperature, timers or alarms.

Due to the addition of this feature, the Echo Dot with watch is R$100 more expensive, costing R$499, in white and blue.

Echo Show 10

This device is a smart speaker with screen. The Echo Show 10 has a 10-inch HD display that automatically stays within sight of you, moving around as you interact with Alexa.

In practice, you'll be able to ask Alexa to make a video call, for example, and you won't have to worry about getting out of frame, as the screen will follow you as you move around the environment. The screen features a new 13-megapixel wide-angle camera with an integrated cover that zooms in and out. This helps you always stay in the center of the screen.

As the Echo Show 10 moves, your tweeters front-facing and its woofer also move, producing sound that automatically adapts to your space, according to Amazon.

In Brazil, Amazon reported that the new Echo Show 10 will soon be available in black, costing R$1.899. 

Want to know more? Take a look in this matter of showmetech, which brings more details about the new device from Amazon.

fire tv stick lite

Another Amazon announcement in September was the update to the Fire TV. According to the company, the home screen has been improved, with new functionality for content discovery, voice integration with Alexa and user profiles for personalized recommendations.

Viewers can directly access their favorite streaming service, or scroll through compatible apps to get a quick look at what's available and then start playing.

To access Fire TV, you will need the new fire tv stick lite, which is the first video streaming device that already comes with Alexa built in. It's a kind of kit that includes the Fire TV (which you can connect to your TV similar to a Chromecast) and a Lite Remote Control with Alexa Voice.

The new fire tv stick lite enables fast application launches and streaming, with 1080p resolution at a rate of 60fps (frames per second). Dual antenna Wi-Fi can connect to 5GHz networks for smoother streaming and fewer connection drops. Fire TV Stick Lite also includes HDR support.

Using the remote control, you can request to listen to music, ask about the weather forecast, news and information. In the context of Fire TV, you can open an app, search for a series or movie on Prime Video or Netflix. In practice, the manufacturer says that the search process will be reduced to asking: “Alexa, search for comedies” or “Alexa, open Vivo Play”, for example.

In Brazil, the Fire TV Stick Lite is available for R$349.

Alexa Accessibility Award

This initiative emerged in Brazil, in partnership with AACD, Instituto Jô Clemente and Fundação Dorina Nowill for the blind. The idea is to be an incentive program to encourage developers to create skills for Alexa that contribute to the inclusion of people with disabilities in the experience. The prizes are:

• 1st place: BRL 10, an Echo Studio and the right to choose an NGO (from a list of pre-selected organizations) for Amazon to make a BRL 50 donation;
• 2st place: BRL 5, an Echo Show 8 and the right to choose an NGO (from a list of pre-selected organizations) for Amazon to make a BRL 35 donation;
• 3st place: an Echo Show 8, an Echo, a Positivo Smart Home kit and the right to choose an NGO (from a list of pre-selected organizations) for Amazon to make a donation of R$15;
• Between 4th and 10th place: an Echo Show 8.

The award is for developers who have a skill published between August 25th, XNUMX e December 17, 2020. In fact, the Alexa Award will offer an Echo Dot to the first 300 developers who publish a skill for Alexa, as long as it contributes to the insertion and/or improvement of the quality of life for people with disabilities.

To participate you need to fill in a form, available on the awards page. 

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Did you like the news that Alexa's birthday in Brazil brought? So take a look at coverage of showmetech about the Amazon event where the company announced the new Echo devices!