Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Everything Amazon announced at IFA 2019”.
Amazon really wants to get into your living room., But it kind of knows that just offering streaming services or offering a little box that can turn your dumb TV into a Smart TV eventually isn’t gon na be enough to gain entry into the most sociable room. In your house. So to enter that space, they know they need to be more convenient need to offer your TV an upgrade or they need to do something else. Entirely..
They need to offer something that can control your entire media ecosystem. And today, at IFA 2019. We got our clearest look yet at Amazon’s grand plan to invade your living room..
So Amazon announced one new product today, one slightly upgraded product and it greatly expanded an initiative. That’S been exclusive to North America until now.. Our first of these are the fire edition.
Tvs. We’ve already seen some of these come to North America, but the big news here is they’re. Launching internationally.
Amazon is partnered with Currys in the UK, where it’s manufacturing a TV alongside JVC, and it’s also releasing some TVs in Germany.. The most interesting of these is a Grundig TV, that’s OLED., Now, obviously its OLED. So it’s probably gon na look pretty amazing, but it’s also the first of Amazon’s TVs that will offer actual far-field hands-free voice control..
So basically, you won’t have to use a remote to speak to Alexa. You can just talk to the TV directly., So the idea here is convenience.. If someone who owns a Smart TV is less likely to buy an external set-top box., Then why not just build your platform into the Smart TV in the first place, I mean it’s such a good idea that Amazon isn’t even the only one who’s trying this.
Roku In the States has partnered with a number of TV manufacturers to build Roku TV into TVs and Amazon’s just doing the same thing., And not only is it convenient for you, but well. It’S also pretty convenient for Amazon. You’re, probably going to hold on to that TV. For a really long time, which means your gon na have a Fire TV in your house for a really long time.
Now. The second of these is the Nebula., Which is basically a soundbar with a Fire TV stick built-in you plug it into your TV and it’s as though you bought a set-top box., And the idea is that it’s given you an upgrade. Someone with a Smart TV might Not buy an external streaming box., But anyone with a flat screen TV probably needs a sound upgrade.. Amazon knows if it can offer you the upgrade pretty much. Anyone will consider it. Even if they’ve already got all the streaming services, they might need built right into their TV.
And again it’s not an entirely unique idea.. I mean just this week we saw Roku produce a soundbar of its own. That offers you Roku TV. And in the past, Google. Also partnered, with JBL to build Android TV into one of JBL’s sound bars..
Now the last of these is something a little bit more unique, but it’s also something we’ve seen from Amazon before.. It’S called the Fire TV Cube. And Amazon released the first generation of this device last year.. This is more of an incremental upgrade in terms of hardware, but in terms of Amazon’s release, it’s pretty major.. It’S got a faster processor, it’s twice as powerful Amazon says., And it can also process some of your more frequent voice commands locally to try to make them faster. Four times faster. According to Amazon..
It now supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision in addition to good old HDR10, which provides a kind of marginal improvement to video quality when it’s available from streaming services.. But probably the bigger news is that it’s launching internationally., Which means that it’s not just a domestic experiment anymore.. It’S now a flagship Amazon product. Now, ostensibly the Fire TV Cube is just another streaming box., But in truth, it’s a lot more than that and Amazon has ambitions for it to be the one device to rule them all.
And to control your entire home entertainment system Via HDMI-CEC and IR blasters., It’s like a universal remote. If that universal remote was packing, Amazon’s streaming platform and Alexa.. So finding a way into your living room at the moment is fairly easy for Amazon.. It can offer a nice cheap streaming device that has a good interface and access to all the streaming services you want., But in the future, every single Smart TV is gon na be able to do exactly that., And so the barrier to entry has got that much Higher., So what we’ve seen here at IFA is Amazon’s grand ambition for what happens when that future comes to pass., Where in the future, you’ll buy a product that you need, and it just so happens to have Amazon’s services attached to it.
And Amazon wants to get Into your living room, but it also wants you to get into it’s ecosystem.. It wants you to get comfortable there and ultimately it wants you to keep on coming back for more.. So, what’s your streaming platform of choice, Are you already involved in Amazon’s OS, Or are you using one of it’s competitors like Roku, Or do you just rely on your Smart, TV’s, built-in streaming apps? Let us know in the comments down below and don’t forget to subscribe for more videos from IFA., I’m so hungry.
I’M gon na go. I’ll see you guys later. .