Mother’s Day is a modern celebration to honor mothers and mother figures, maternal bonds, in short, motherhood as a whole. This annual event is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the month of May. Coming up with lovely Mother’s Day gift ideas can be tricky from time to time, though we believe we’ve found the perfect fit for the tech-savvy moms out there.
With 2016’s Mother’s Day just around the corner let us take a look at the Amazon Echo and how it can be a great gift for your mother this year.
Amazon started off as an online bookseller but recently it branched out to the IoT (Internet of Things) with the release of the Echo. The Echo is an internet-connected smart speaker which doubles as a personal assistant.
There has been a great development in the sphere of smart home products and the Echo is one of the options to buy at the moment. This voice-activated speaker is not just futuristic but also a substantial helping hand as well.
Housed within this speaker is the virtual assistant named “Alexa”, similar to Siri, Google Now and alike. While is not as profound as Jarvis from Iron Man, it does an excellent job with day to day services like playing the music, weather updates, etc.
“Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask.”
Your mom can ask it to update her on the morning headlines as she prepares breakfast. Or she can ask it to remind her of the tasks she has to address. It can even keep tabs on the weather and traffic and help to control the ‘smart home’.
It works seamlessly with a variety of smart home products like Philips Hue, WeMo smart switches from Belkin, connected thermostats such as the Nest and so on. Once paired up with these devices, a voice command will be sufficient to turn things on and off. It’ll fit in with her daily routine without needing to change her habits.
Echo is always listening, therefore, you do not need to push a button to make it listen. Hidden within the Echo are 7 noise-cancelling microphones which employee “far-field” voice recognition technology. In a nutshell, it can hear you even when you are far away from it or there is chatter going on in the background.
The Alexa app on your smartphone can be used to download additional “Skills”, like the apps of Alexa for the virtual assistant. They can also teach here to carry out new orders like ordering a pizza from Domino’s, or book a ride on Uber.
IFTTT further enables the user to connect the Amazon Alexa Channel to 215 different Channels.
So, want to facilitate your mom’s life with an intelligent speaker that will soothe her mood with good music and ease her work load? Then Amazon Echo is the best choice.
