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Will the Amazon Echo Look be a successful product? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Jonathan Brill, Former VP of Sales of an IoT company.
Yes, the Amazon Echo Look will be a successful product, and will spawn a new class of consumer electronic “blend” products that are designed specifically for the bedroom.
I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon. I hate that they keep coming out with products I think are nuts and then selling tens of millions of them. I hate that their products look unsophisticated compared to the uber-electronic-AI-enabled swiss army knife iPhone I carry, but I end up owning them anyway. It offends my life-goal of uncluttering my life by owning less consumer electronics products and products in general.
In direct contrast with Apple, a company that keeps bundling more stuff into ever-smaller, more elegantly designed packages, Amazon is going the opposite way: they keep making cheap, low-tech, purpose-built gear that nobody knew they needed til their friends had one.
Here’s my brief history with Amazon consumer electronics innovation:
Amazon comes out with the Kindle. At the time, almost no good books have electronic versions, and the hardware for Kindle is comically worse than the smartphone and laptop I already owned. It’s not even in color! It doesn’t even have a light in it! I laughed at Amazon heartily, then laughed at anybody who was silly enough to spend money on what was obviously a piece of junk. But I was wrong. They’ve sold tens of millions of Kindles, and Kindle-books make up about 20% of all books sold [1].
I now own a Kindle. When thinking about what device to get for my kids, I surveyed the two iPads I already owned and realized the Kindle was just better. I hate Amazon so much for this. The Kindle was cheaper (so I didn’t care as much if it was smashed), had a better user interface for kids, and had an app store and subscription plan that a five year old could understand and use. It was superior in its simplicity. I hate Amazon.
Amazon introduces the Echo. When I was running sales for an Internet of Things company, I met with Amazon repeatedly about their strategy and came away thinking they were years behind Google and Apple, which were both building out ecosystems around tentpole, best-in-class products like the Nest thermostat. But then Amazon came out with this joke of a product called the Amazon Echo.
It’s clearly just an underwhelming speaker in an awkward-looking, generic black casing and some voice recognition. All the use cases looked like novelties. Nobody who was a serious home music listener would prefer this over a Bose or Sonos (or anything really).
But my knowledge of how crappy internet of things mobile interfaces were built, and how much better “voice” was, made me think this craptacular black box had promise. Maybe a “real” consumer electronics company like Apple would just build something much better, but it’s been years now and they haven’t done it. I now own both an Amazon Echo and an Amazon Tap, and will probably get another Echo soon. Everybody I know who's seen this at my house wants one or has one. We use this thing to turn our lights on or off. We don’t even know where the light switches are anymore! My family uses these products for hours a day, and all of our music is played through these. I hate Amazon.
Amazon comes out with the Echo Look. On its surface, this is just a ridiculous joke of a product. It seems insane to me that someone would invite Amazon, a clearly biased observer, to tell them how they look and what clothes they should buy. Amazon is trying to sell you clothes! Why would you trust their opinion on how you look?
I know I dress like I just woke up in someone else’s clothes. The last thing I want is a Voice of God device in my own closet telling me that. Although, now that I think about it, it would be kind of cool for them to see what I already have and make recommendations. I do have that one shirt that I like and have been stumped on where to buy other shirts like it. I guess it would be neat for them to let me know that there’s some kind of sale on stuff in my size from brands I’ve bought from before. And I was kind of thinking it would be nice to have an Echo in our bedroom, where we spend a ton of time getting ready in the morning, bath time at night for the kids, etc. It’s happening again. I hate Amazon. Take my money. Jerks.
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Answer by Brian Roemmele, Founder and Editor at Read Multiplex.
A large percentage of the population spends a lot of time on their appearance. But for people who don’t, it may be weird to them that there’s a market for products like Amazon’s Echo Look. Thus, when they see anything in tech that is related to fashion, the lack of perspective most of this second group will have becomes embarrassingly apparent. It should be no surprise that the new Echo Look [1] camera announced today is already met with classic "Umm, no" to the heartless "Alexa does my butt look fat in these jeans?” comments (mostly coming from men).
Yet, I believe most people, even those who may not see the need for it today, will secretly want the features of Amazon Look, but not explicitly state it. We all want to look great but many of these “just roll out of bed” types just want to make it look more or less an “accident” that the shirt is tucked in just so and the beard is unshaven, just enough.
The Technical Side Of Echo Look
The technical aspects of Echo Look are close to an Echo Dot. It has a better far-field microphone array than the Dot and a small speaker. This is not an Amazon Echo as far as sound quality. However, it is not meant to replace the main Echo, but to be an extension into a new room of the house, the closet or bedroom.
Using your voice, you can easily take full-length photos and short videos with a hands-free camera that includes built-in LED lighting, depth-sensing camera, and computer vision-based background blur. This allows you to see yourself from every angle with the companion app, build a personal look book, and share your photos.
You can get a second opinion on which outfit looks best with Style Check, a new service that combines machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists. Echo Look will also help you discover new brands and styles inspired by your look book.
Jeff Bezos Long Voice First Game
Jeff Bezos thinks in decades and this should be clear to any casual observer. The entire Voice First revolution was sparked by this premise. The idea is to build an entirely new platform, but clearly never to explicitly state this. It is working to a greater degree as Jeff says that music is the real reason he built the Echo system. Indeed, perhaps the Echo system, but not the Alexa platform.
Amazon was on the wave of the internet revolution but missed the mobile revolution. They are in the forefront of the Voice First revolution and Echo Look is just the latest example.
Amazon, via Alexa, is invading every room we live and work in. They started with the kitchen, moved to the living room and now are in the closet. Part of the apparel shopping experience is the ability to be connected with your ‘look” and the trends. The most successful retail apparel businesses have the best sales representatives. Even today the feedback and recommendations are very powerful. Many women seek this out at trusted boutiques and even larger retailers like Nordstrom. This is also one of the reasons many women will shop with friends.
The long game, perhaps over a decade, Amazon has been playing in apparel and is making some strides but only in some segments like commodity items like socks, hosiery and some undergarments. They have also made some recent sales boosts in the casual active/workout clothes segment.
Amazon Go Store Technology In Your Closet
The more general fashion segment has been elusive for Amazon. Amazon’s answer is to use the technology of their Amazon Rekognition engine [2], image recognition AI, along with the Alexa Voice First engine to create a Style Assistant. Much like a good sales associate at a boutique, or perhaps even like a trusted friend, Amazon is aiming to offer fashion advice, tips, recommendations and a long term memory.
The Amazon Rekognition engine is the same technology that is being used inside the Amazon warehouses and most recently at the Amazon Go Store [3]. The system will be able to detect from millions of fashion items and variation. There is simply no other system that has this ability. At some point Echo Look will be able to detect all aspects of your personal wardrobe.
The Echo Look is deceptively simple at first look. However, just like Alexa, the heavy lifting is done by the AI in the AWS cloud. Today the system uses the Style Check app as a way to help you identify your current look and to find examples of what others are wearing and of course at some point offer a potential purchase via Amazon. The looks you create will be stored int a Personal look book for future reference.
The Echo Look Is A Closet Inventory System
With Echo/Alexa in your closet, the system will slowly begin to understand what you own, like, and may like in the future. In fact, it may turn out that many users will use the LookBook app rather than dig through their closet to suggest what to wear on a particular day.
Additionally, sooner than most of us can think, Alexa may say “Lisa, you have a meeting with Bob today from headquarters, so I have made some suggestions in your LookBook so that you look your best. You also have a date with Eric and the same outfit will work for the evening, with the accessories you can add after work. What do you think?”
The Style Check aspect of Echo Look is a great example of how deep learning and AI can attack a problem. Over time, and based on your personalized look, Style Check will improve with ideas.
Thus we see the long game of Echo Look. It is not just to sell you some new garments, but to become an AI based fashion/style consultant and “friend”. Perhaps at some point it may make the tough calls on regrettable fashion choices that may save you from looking back and saying “what was I thinking?”
A Direct Hit To Retail Apparel Sales
The impact to retail apparel sales will, over time, be quite significant as the last thread holding many women to some boutiques and larger retailers was fashion advice based on the look a particular store may have. I have no doubts that Echo Look will be successful in exactly the way that internally Amazon has defined. Over the arc of the next ten years we will look back and wonder how Voice First systems have become so common in so many areas. The Amazon Look will be one of those products, just like the original Echo that takes hold outside the centerline of the tech world and becomes beloved by millions before it is rediscovered by the tech world as being a “thing”, give it about two years.
I believe that the $200 price point, above the original Amazon Echo selling price today is steep. However, I see a point in time where it will be about $99 or FREE. There are many compelling reasons for Amazon to start offering these devices at no cost to Prime customers who will use it to increase average tickets and average volume. Some shoppers may spend thousands of dollars through the Echo Look.
I have said there is a revolution ahead and it has a voice, I also know it will have a camera [4].
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Answer by Andrew Hamada, marketing and customer experience at Amazon.
Note: I work for Amazon but do not represent the company, this is my personal opinion, yada yada.
I know nothing about the economics of Amazon devices, but my immediate reaction on seeing this device was “Amazon does not want to be in the business of creating and selling voice-enabled hardware, but nobody else is experimenting with the voice ecosystem the way they want at the speed they want, so they’re doing it themselves.”
Smart Home technologies has had this problem for years. I think if Amazon had their way, the Dot would have been the first and only Echo product, so customers could just attach a $49 Amazon interface to an existing sound system. Amazon would be responsible for the interface and shopping experience, where they have expertise, while other companies could innovate and compete on attachments in their areas of expertise. But that’s not how people or markets work, so the first Echo product had a quasi-premium speaker and a much higher price tag, and I think that was critical to its success.
I think Amazon is doing the same thing here—helping customers discover another way to integrate voice controls with technologies they understand, for purposes we understand. The Echo Look is basically an Amazon-branded, voice-controlled webcam starter kit; it’s a Dot+Dropcam bundle, the same way the original Echo is a Dot+speaker bundle.
Given how liberal Amazon has been about opening up Alexa and Echo technology to third parties, and how little expertise and brand recognition they have in consumer imaging, I think they’ve positioned the Look as inspiration and will consider it successful if it drives more experimentation with the platform.
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