After making the most failed phone, the most successful smart speaker, Amazon reveals its next hardware ambition

Since the launch of the voice virtual assistant Alexa in 2014, Amazon has sold hundreds of millions of Echo smart home devices, becoming a global market that Apple, Microsoft, Google and other giants cannot shakesmart speakerSales king.

Amazon used to Alexa voice assistantAs the center, it has set off a wave of smart speakers landing, and ambitiously promotes the plan to connect and control everything with voice interaction. But with founder Bezos stepping back into the background, Amazon’s technology and business strategy around Alexa and hardware devices may see new changes.

Dave Limp is the head of all of Amazon’s hardware and Alexa voice assistant businesses, reporting directly to current CEO Andy Jassy. Around many hot topics in the smart home field, Dave Lee of the British “Financial Times” came to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and had a face-to-face in-depth exchange with Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, including many dry goods.

▲ Dave Lee (right) of the Financial Times and Dave Limp (left), Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services

In the conversation, Dave Limp talks about Amazon’sAmbient Computing(Ambient Computing), and talk about the difference between ambient computing and the metaverse. Amazon is more concerned with real-world computing than its other peers betting on the metaverse.

Ambient computing is a concept that smart home giants have been advocating for several years, but it is not as out of the circle as concepts such as “whole house intelligence” and “metaverse”.

It paints a picture of a future technology:Hardware, software and devices are everywherethey perceive or even predict your needs at any time, and provide personalized services through data analysis invisibly; and when you don’t need it,These devices will be “invisible” againso that you hardly notice their presence.

Amazon sees ambient computing as the direction of technology that will forever change the shape of the world. Dave Limp revealed that Amazon performs hundreds of millions of smart home operations every month, but more than a quarter of the operations are automatically triggered by the device before the user has issued a command.

▲ The Echo smart speaker released by Amazon in 2014

As tech giants rush into this track, Amazon’s focus on smart hardware has shifted from achieving “everywhere” to needing to answer a key question:How does Alexa make money for Amazon?

Dave Limp responds to Alexa’s commercialization progress. He also talked about Amazon’s transition from the flop Fire Phone to the Alexa business, and shared his thoughts on the “killer app” of Amazon’s home robot, Astro.

The Fire Phone, Amazon’s first and only smartphone to date, was released in 2014, and it turned out to be a poor market. But this failure has instead allowed Amazon to open up its hardware and software imagination beyond mobile phones – building an empire of smart devices centered on Alexa.

And Amazon’s Astro, a home robot launched last year, is one of the most bizarre hardware products it has ever released. It is like a long-wheeled smart speaker with a screen. In addition to all the functions supported by the smart speaker, it can patrol and supervise workers everywhere. (Amazon’s first home robot, super cute round-eyed flat face! 10 smart hardware get together)

▲ Astro, the home assistant robot released by Amazon in 2021

On the premise of not violating the original intention, Zhishi has completely compiled this in-depth interview. The following is the interview record:

The Future of Human-Computer Interaction: Ambient Computing

Dave Limp:This is another user paradigm of how people interact with technology. Typing on a full QWERTY keyboard, typing on a laptop, or typing on a smartphone are all familiar and time-honored ways of interacting with technology.

Ambient computing is another way of interacting with technology, and it’s different from typing above. Whether it is the elderly or the young, there is no need to read manuals, instructional videos, etc. to learn how to use this technology.You can interact with it as long as you stand next to it.

So when you walk into the room where the Echo (Amazon smart speaker) is and you say “turn on the lights” and you control the lights, the whole process is natural and doesn’t require you to read about how to turn on the lights or how to play music manual.

It also has a feature thatdisappears when not in use. This can have an effect on family relationships that can help you stop looking at your phone all the time. A lot of times, when I get home, my kids will be wearing headphones all over the house and fiddling with one or two electronic devices at the same time.

Dave Limp:Yes, maybe it has something to do with the parents. But here’s the thing: Ambient computing will take you away from your phone and family time. This is also its broad definition.

For example, for us, the form of ambient computing is to have multiple Echo devices around your house. So when you want to play music, you’re actually saying “play music” and enjoying it together, rather than putting on headphones and listening to it yourself. When you’re watching TV, you can say “Turn on ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Network)” and watch sports with your family. And then when you don’t use it, it disappears into your life, so, looking at it this way, technology isn’t everywhere.

Dave Limp:Interestingly,We’re working to reduce communication with Alexa. I remember people’s eyes lit up when they first saw the Echo. Their expressions were like, “Oh my God, it’s almost like magic”. But it’s even more incredible when Alexa can proactively predict and complete your actions.

We perform hundreds of millions of smart home actions every month, butmore than 1/4 operationsIt’s done by the Echo before the user’s command is given, and the user doesn’t do anything, let alone “turn on the light” or “open the door”, “set the thermostat”, etc. These commands are automatically triggered, if this happens in the future, That’s what I think is the most amazing.

It’s like the best assistant you’ve ever had: When you’re delayed at the airport, they might rebook your flight for you. You’ll say, “The flight was late, but now I’m on another flight, which is amazing!”

Dave Limp:Not exactly, but it does proactively do certain things in your home. If you turn off your porch light for 30 days in a row, and then on day 31, you forget to turn it off, Alexa will turn it off for you. we call it “hunches”, Alexa will have a hunch, it will sense your actions and turn off the porch lights. As AI gets smarter, these capabilities will become richer.

Dave Limp:I think there is a place for the use of ambient computing anywhere you want your hands free or you don’t want to be distracted. This happens in some workplaces, and I think cars are a good example.

Hundreds of Millions of Alexa Devices Sold

▲ The Fire Phone, the first smartphone launched by Amazon in 2014

Dave Limp:I don’t think the shift in this business was conscious. I think as a company,What we’re trying to do is build devices that are deeply coupled to services. Our business is already paying off when other companies in the industry start to think about it. Starting with the Kindle (e-book reader), this device is not only good-looking, but also deeply compatible with bookstores.

Just like Amazon does, if you take a lot of risk at the beginning, some failures are inevitable. So it wasn’t because our smartphone business was failing that we all of a sudden decided we had to do something else and have to be successful in this space, we were just exploring both areas at the same time.

I’ve heard a lot of people saying, “Don’t send your phone, it’s never going to work.” But I’ve also heard about the same number saying, “Don’t think of this Pringles jar with a microphone. It’s insane because that’s not going to work.”

However,We’ve now sold hundreds of millions of Alexa-enabled devices, another smartphone project didn’t work out, and I’ll retake this risk for a smartphone as well. As long as I can get an Alexa, I can fail the Fire Phone five times, the math is that simple.

Ambient computing or Metaverse, who is the next generation computing platform?

• Dave Lee:Let’s talk about your thoughts on the next computing platform, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta and focused the company on the metaverse. For me, that means more technology: I want to go somewhere in the virtual world and I need to put this VR (virtual reality) headset on my face. In terms of basic implementation, ambient computing and the metaverse seem to be the exact opposite,How do you see the difference between these two technologies?

Dave Limp:I think it starts with your definition of the metaverse because it means different things to different people. If I ask my kids, they might think of the 3D games Minecraft (Minecraft) and Roblox, while others might think of VR experiences, maybe AR (augmented reality) experiences.

It seems to me that the common description of the metaverse is to connect people in different places, sometimes virtual worlds, sometimes imitating the real world.

What we are trying to do now isMake the real world here more accessible to people. Actually, there’s a lot of stuff about ambient computing all around you, and I think there’s going to be a lot of use cases for what we invent in the world of ambient computing, and that’s going to be applicable to a lot of scenarios in the “metaverse” as well, and we’ve got a reason Believe, there is indeed a voice assistant in the metaverse.

Dave Limp:I haven’t spoken to Zuckerberg about how big he thinks it is. I do think that if the internet industry can do that, it has a chance to push smartphones further,The technology to do this, however, does not yet existit is currently only available in the form of VR glasses.

About half of users use Alexa to shop

Dave Limp:No offense intended, but this data is wrong. A lot of people use it for shopping, about half.

▲ Amazon’s small Echo Dot device

Dave Limp:Yes, or use some shopping features like add to list or reorder etc.This is one of our fastest growing use cases. Clearly, this is helping Amazon.

But I also want to talk about a lot of other things that are happening on Alexa that help monetize — sometimes for us, sometimes for developers. A lot of people use Spotify (the music streaming service) on Alexa. Spotify has an ad-supported version, and a subscription-supported version. It’s great, and we’re very supportive of it. We also have a music service, and a lot of people are using Prime Music too.

Dave Limp:No, I think, for the developers and ourselves, we’ll find more ways down the road. But I feel that in the past few years, the progress has been huge.

Dave Limp:I think it’s natural that there are many use cases, let’s think about what the world will look like after this pandemic… We’re going to be working from home more, but we’re also redefining the way we communicate with people, especially loved ones people, and so on.

The idea that we have virtual healthcare has always been as far-fetched as the North Star.But the pandemic has accelerated the process, to be able to have an easy-to-use technology, (you) just call the doctor on an Echo Show or other device. This looks fine.

▲ The Amazon Echo Show adds a screen for video calling and streaming

Another example is that we all want to be closer to our loved ones. But it’s harder than ever because we can’t travel… In my case, my dad is older, he’s still full of energy, and I care about him.So we have a Alexa Together s project. My idea is that with his permission, I can connect my Alexa experience to his. That way I can tell he was active that day.

Alexa will sense his presence, know he’s up, and I’ll be reassured when I get this message in my inbox in the morning. It’s a nice manifestation of ambient computing: he doesn’t have to do anything… just a little “warmth” knowing he’s up and moving around is worth millions.

Home Assistant Robots: More like pets than computers

Dave Limp:I’m not sure if I can make a sales pitch. There are devices that we’ve been developing over the years, in all forms, and it’s one of those devices that, in a weird way, becomes part of your home. If one side is pure technology, utilities, personal computers, and the other side is pets such as cats and dogs,Astro is closer to pets than PCs.

▲ Amazon’s Astro home assistant robot

I know this sounds a bit exaggerated. But it’s strange how important it has become as part of our family. By the way, when we gave it to other people — only in a few families — their feedback was similar.

Dave Limp:We can’t reveal, very little, not a big number.

Dave Limp:More than that, and we’re nowhere near a million. We do this to learn and get good feedback to make the product better. It’s right in your home and has a lot of practical value.

Some people have Ring and Blink (smart home camera systems), I didn’t do that, I just installed a camera to monitor the wine cooler. Other than that, I don’t want cameras in every room of the house. But when I leave for vacation, I really want to see the house.

Now, with the cameras on this wheel, it can move, it can drive itself, it can patrol, and it can notify me of anything abnormal. It’s really fun and reassuring.

(Astro even) starts to understand where you’re hanging out in the room, and it’ll be hanging out like a dog in the right place.

▲ Amazon’s Astro can patrol several areas of the house when the owner is away

During the Christmas holidays, when we were decorating the tree, I had a pleasant experience: it played us Christmas music. It’s pleasant because you don’t need an Echo or a Bluetooth speaker there, or put on headphones… that’s the ambient experience.

What is Astro’s “killer app”?

Dave Limp:I have my doubts about the “killer app” because I think it’s a long gone paradigm.The utility of a thing is made up of many things. When we first launched the Echo, people asked me the same question: what’s the killer app?

Dave Limp:I understand, but I can tell you that people interact with Alexa on the Echo billions of times a week, billions of dollars. If I show you what they’re doing, the music is great, it’s popular, but it’s not one thing, it’s thousands of things, and it’s changing every day.

It could be your child asking a homework question, it could be the kitchen timer, it could be your alarm clock. The combination of all these factors brings utility. I think the same goes for smartphones… At first, your calls were just voice calls, and I don’t even remember when was the last time I called. It’s developing, and I think the same thing will happen with Astro. I’m pretty sure — we can talk about time frames, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years? —— Robots will appear in people’s homes. I’m very sure.

Dave Limp:Everyone’s home. over time,Everyone will have a different version of the robot, because there are too many tasks and things you don’t want to do, or you don’t need to do. Security is a good example.

Dave Limp:I have a robot vacuum. I think a dishwasher is a very simple robot because it automates routine tasks that no one wants to do.

I don’t think one robot can solve all of these problems, and I don’t underestimate the value of a robot’s personality and companionship. There will be practical robots, like we just described, one that will mop your floors, one that will wash your dishes, and maybe take out your trash, and these would be a nice robot too. But there are also robots that are used for companionship, have a personality, and can provide value.

Dave Limp:I think we’ve thought about privacy at a fundamental level. Astro is a good example. We over-indexed the amount of computation inside the robot,So the vast majority of things in bots happen locally, they never go to the cloud.

Most things are optional. You don’t have to select it if you don’t want it to recognize you. We’ve also added privacy protections to the hardware. If you mute it…all visible light cameras are basically off.

Do we have so much privacy protection? More than that, we will continue to do so. But I think it’s safer to keep Astro at home than to keep someone else’s smartphone at home.

Dave Limp:It was the (Gene) Roddenberry of the 60’s. We’re talking about a real visionary dreamer.

Dave Limp:I can’t predict the date when we will rendezvous with that “North Star”. Not next year, not the year after. This is 5, 10 years from now.

But if you go back 7 years and I put the original cylindrical Echo in front of you, with just Alexa’s capabilities and voice on that product, and put it next to the (latest) Echo Studio… it’s bigger than the one we just released time smarter by orders of magnitude.

This is the essence of what this golden age of computer science has brought us down this path.

Conclusion: From ubiquity to ambient computing, how much room is there for smart devices to imagine?

As the originator of smart speakers, every fall, Amazon launches a large number of hardware devices, ranging from smart speakers, smart doorbells, and video calling devices to drones and home robots.

During Amazon founder Bezos’ tenure as CEO, the Alexa division was one of Amazon’s most admired projects, with more than 10,000 employees two or three years ago. The matrix of smart devices around the Alexa voice assistant carries Amazon’s biggest hardware ambition yet.

Although Amazon has drawn a grand blueprint for “environmental experience” for the future of human-computer interaction, as of today, the common functions of smart devices such as smart speakers still seem to be playing music, setting alarms, making calls, etc., even with Amazon Electronics. None of the Alexa shopping capabilities connected to Commerce has really set off a new online shopping trend.

Today, the novelty of voice interaction has passed, and the sensorless experience of the Internet of Everything is still immature. Whether it is Amazon or other technology giants, new smart device stories are being drawn.

According to recent foreign media reports, Amazon’s layout may expand to extended reality (XR)/augmented reality (AR). A job posting for Amazon says it wants to hire “Software Engineer – XR/AR, XR/AR Devices”, a job that will include “conceiving and developing key software and architecture for a completely new smart home product.”