Hamar Talk

Amazon Just Launched 6 New Gadgets

In the year of the $1000 iPhone Amazon just announced a scattering of new gadgets and none cost more than $150. Essentially, Amazon said “screws the margins” and are selling everything as cheap as possible. This race to the bottom is Amazon’s standard operating procedure. The company did it with Kindles e-readers and again with Kindle Fire tablets. The company releases a proof of concept and lets the market respond. If the response is favorable, Amazon releases the Kraken on the market.

Amazon announced today the quirky Echo Buttons that cost $20 a pair, the $35 Echo Connect landline thing and a $70 Fire TV capable of 4K. And then there’s the swanky $99 cloth-covered Echo, adorable $130 Echo Spot alarm clock and the $150 Echo Plus, which sports all the goods from the original Echo plus a smart home hub and comes with a Philips Hue bulb.

There’s even a talking Big Mouth Billy Bass. No word on its price, though.

If that’s not cheap enough, many of the products are available through bundles that pair an Echo with a Fire TV model so owners can experience smart home commands right out of the box.

So far the strategy worked with the Kindle and Kindle Fire tablets. In both cases, after the market liked the original model, Amazon slashed the hardware margins and flooded the market with quality hardware with MSRPs dramatically under the competition. In this most recent example, the Echo had a commanding hold on its market much like the Kindle did years ago. Amazon, following its known strategy, just sucked much of the air out of the in-home assistant market. The breadth of Amazon’s inexpensive offering is impressive.

Amazon now sells Echo products for as low as $20 and bundled a Fire TV Stick with an Echo Dot for $60. Said another way, a person could get three Fire TV Sticks and 3 Echo Dots for the price of one Apple TV 4K. If 4K is needed on the Fire TV, Amazon has a bundle for that, too, and a person could purchase two bundles of Fire TV 4K and Echo Dots for $20 less than an Apple TV 4K.

At the top of the line is the $199 Echo Look and $229 Echo Show. Both were announced earlier this year but round out a huge product line. There are now 8 different types of Amazon Echos available for purchase.

This bevy of Amazon products were announced at a pivotal time. Rumor has it Google is about to announce updates to its Google Home line including an Echo Dot-like smaller Google Home. Google was already playing catch-up and now it’s nearly inconceivable Google or Apple will be able to catch Amazon.

New Luxury Cars Coming in 2018

New Luxury Cars Coming in 2018. Best Upcoming Coming Cars in 2018

2018 is just around the corner, and many of next year’s cars are already on the streets. We have seen important updates to industry stalwarts like the Toyota Camry, Ford Expedition, and Honda Odyssey, as well as new introductions of some exciting niche products.

The car industry doesn't follow the calendar like the rest of us do. Models labeled 2018 can arrive anytime after 2017 starts, and many models in this slideshow are already available well before the 2018 calendar goes up on the wall.

While some of these models are all-new, others are redesigns of existing vehicles. That means you might be able to get a great new car deal on the outgoing model as dealers make space for the latest and greatest. Check out our new car deals page for more info.

What’s Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, 2018 Release Calendar:

As studios build out their release calendars further and further into the future, it can be difficult to stay up to date on what’s coming out and when. We’re here to help with that. You can now keep up to date with the film’s being released for 2018. Keep in mind that release dates shift, and new titles are constantly added, so we’ll be frequently updating this calendar to keep apprised on when your most-anticipated films are hitting theaters.

You can see that right now, the space is mostly occupied by Hollywood films since those are the ones studios schedule far into the future (some of these movies don’t even have official titles yet), but as Sundance, TIFF, and other festivals start putting their movies into the world, we’ll be updating this list with indie titles as well.

Related: Best New Movies In Theaters