You'll find Amazon's Alexa voice assistant ready to take your commands from an Echo speaker, an Amazon Fire TV remote, and now, a table lamp.
It's a very sleek table lamp at that, and its maker, General Electric, envisions it as more than just a way to deliver Alexa to people who don't want another gadget in their house. Indeed, it appears worthy of display in a modern art museum: a free-standing, LED-filled circular tube with a tiny gray base that suggests a portal to an alien world.
The lamp is designed by Richard Clarkson, whose previous work includes a cloud-shaped chandelier that doubles as a motion-triggered lightning and thunder performance. Hidden in the base are a microphone and speakers, which probably won't offer the same quality you might expect from an Echo, but nevertheless harness the full power of Alexa.
The lamp can be used to trigger Alexa's core functions, like ordering from Amazon, as well as Alexa "skills" that give the assistant power to control third-party devices and services, like your Google calendar or your lawn sprinklers.
The new lamp will be the latest product in the C by GE series, which currently includes a kit of four connected lightbulbs that retails for $75. The Bluetooth-enabled bulbs can be controlled by a smartphone app, and presumably also by the new Alexa lamp.
GE didn't announce pricing for the lamp, and pre-orders won't begin until early 2017—missing the 2016 holiday shopping season entirely. If you were hoping to give a voice assistant as a gift before then, check out PCMag's comparison of Alexa with its current archrival, Google Home.