Dropping Dots
A few days ago, I wrote about the bottoming out of Alexa-enabled devices. We’ve hit a low of $19.99 several times. Now, Amazon is helping drive the market to that direction by dropping the second generation Echo Dot to $30.
The design of these new devices seems to be converging on flat top cylinders with fabric covering, greyish off-white and black color options, lights on top, and touch interfaces for mute and volume (truthfully, I’m still not sure where to touch on my Google Home Mini to change the volume). What will also converge is that $20 pricing.
Perhaps the next bump after that will be free for subscribers to services. For Google Home, it could be Google Play subscriptions, for Amazon, Amazon Music or Prime Membership. Maybe it’ll be a credit for a first time purchase that offsets the cost.
As we’ve seen with Amazon making Alexa themed investments into prefab homes, the goal of the giants is to create an infinite number of endpoints for its service. When Amazon owns the environment, it is more likely to capture all sales.
