Amazon has succeeded in filling our homes with smart speakers, now it's working on an Alexa-powered hub with which to control your entire smart home.
As Bloomberg reports, Amazon's Lab126 hardware division is thought to be working on a digital command center powered by Alexa and acting as the one device from which your entire smart home is controlled. It's expected to be mounted on a wall and offer up to a 13-inch screen, making it the largest smart display Amazon has designed so far.
From this one device you'll be able to interact with the different smart devices scattered throughout your home, but also use it to play media, enjoy video chats, interact with the Alexa voice assistant, and receive a host of notifications based on your calendar events, reminders, or your smart devices reporting in.
Don't hold your breath waiting for this device to launch, though. Amazon has declined to comment on its existence, and if it does become a viable Echo-branded product Amazon decides to sell, it's not expected to arrive until 2022 costing anywhere between $200-$250. With an ongoing pandemic and growing concerns about worldwide chip shortages, even if Amazon wanted to launch this device next year it may not be able to.