Here's What to Expect from Today's Amazon Hardware Event

Amazon is hosting a hardware launch event this morning at its Seattle headquarters, and has invited the press into the Spheres, Amazon's urban botanical gardens, to show off the new products. It's widely expected that Amazon will announce several new Alexa-equipped hardware products or device partnerships, adding to an already expansive line of Echos and other smart devices. The company hosted a similar event last fall, which reaffirmed Amazon's commitment to putting Alexa in as many places as possible. At that event, Amazon introduced a new 4K Fire TV; a smaller, $99 Echo speaker; a $149 Echo Plus speaker; an Echo that looks like an alarm clock, called the Echo Spot; Echo Buttons, for casual games; and a partnership with BMW to make Alexa work in cars. It also rolled the ability to initiate phone calls with Alexa, using a $35 device called the Echo Connect.