Science

Amazon Tap Debuts with Voice Command That Plays Music, Order Uber, and Pizza

Listen to tunes, get things done.

by Dylan Love

Before the disembodied voice of Amazon’s Alexa could even win a place in your heart, the company released an upgraded form factor for her. Available for pre-order today, Amazon Tap is a portable Bluetooth speaker that is inhabited by Alexa, Amazon’s virtual personal assistant software and spooooky ghost of convenience.

Not only will the new Alexa-enabled Tap speaker respond to plain language commands like “play The Clash on Spotify” or “turn it up,” but a host of other features and capabilities are just a grunt away. Have Alexa set a timer, fetch the weather for you, adjust the lights and thermostat of your smart home, order a pizza, and fetch general information for you.

Amazon demonstrates the new device’s capabilities in the following video, which features a lot of the major use cases for such a device:

Alexa debuted in a speaker format called Echo, and over time the cry from consumers must have been that they wanted Alexa to travel with them. Tap is a smaller device with a clip at the top, making it a snap to attach it a variety of places. As you ride your bike home, Tap swinging from your backpack, you might recall with a panic that you’re out of dog food, and re-order some in a flash (from Amazon, naturally).

See also: Amazon Debuts Its Alexa-Enabled Echo Dot

This is Siri for someone who doesn’t necessarily want to have a high-dollar smartphone for Siri-style features. And if you’re a fickle music fan who’s going to be changing tunes often, why not make that effort as easy as speaking?

If you think the price is right at $130, you can order Tap today and receive it at the end of the month.

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