Amazon's 'latest devices, features, and services' will be announced next week
Nowhere near as splashy as Apple's annual iPhone launch events or Samsung's slightly more frequent Unpacked shindigs, Amazon's jam-packed fall hardware announcement parties have become a tradition as reliable as online holiday shopping frenzies over the last few years.
Even though the e-commerce giant already unveiled a new Kindle e-reader and an upgraded group of Fire tablets separately and rather discreetly this beginning of autumn, said tradition is set to carry on for at least another year.
That's right, a mysterious host of unnamed "Amazon devices, features, and services" is still in the pipeline, with a formal announcement officially slated for 9 am Pacific Time (12 pm Eastern) on September 28.
For those keeping score at home, that's eight days ahead of Google's own big product launch event of the fall, where new "additions to the Nest smart home portfolio" are expected to break cover alongside the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro handsets and the long-awaited Pixel Watch.
While we highly doubt that Amazon will take the wraps off a phone or smartwatch next Wednesday, the focus of its presumably Alexa-centric event is all but guaranteed to be on alternatives to said new Nest-branded smart home gadgets.
We're talking first and foremost about Echo smart speakers and smart displays, and although we have absolutely no idea exactly what's in store, 2020's fourth-gen "standard" Echo, Echo Dot, and the early 2021-released Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) could all be due for an upgrade.
Knowing Amazon, of course, there are so many other products and appliances in play that could get various types of Alexa integrations that we'd rather not even start listing them all. In terms of new "features" and voice assistant skills, the sky is also the limit to the company's upgrading and expanding possibilities next week. Simply put, you don't want to miss this (virtual) launch for anything in the world.
Things that are NOT allowed: