Amazon will hold its annual hardware event today, Wednesday September 25, where it’s widely-tipped to reveal a bevvy of new tech products – from new Echo smart speakers, to Alexa-powered kitchen goods, and finally, a pair of wireless earbuds with hands-free access to AI assistant Alexa.
According to CNBC, these new earbuds will offer similar functionality to Apple AirPods. They’ll purportedly ship with a charging case designed to keep the earbuds topped-up with battery when they’re not in use and connect to your smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard rumblings of Amazon working on its own AirPods-style earbuds, but the CNBC report claims these will have health tracking features – something that hasn’t been claimed by any previous reports around the as-yet unannounced Alexa-powered gadget.
Using a built-in accelerometer, Amazon will supposedly track your workouts – like outdoor runs – including the calories burned and average pace.
It’s unclear whether the earbuds will have any built-in storage for offline music playback, or whether you’ll always need to take your smartphone with you during a workout.
If so, the ability to track the distance of your run might not be as handy as first thought, since you’ll presumably be carrying your phone, Apple Watch, or Fitbit anyway to beam your workout playlist to the Alexa earbuds.
Amazon is sure to answer all of these queries and more during its keynote presentation today.
Fitness tracking would certainly help Amazon’s earbuds differentiate themselves from Apple’s true wireless offering – which currently have a 60 percent share of the wireless earbud market – and other AirPod alternatives.
Better yet, CNBC claims the Amazon wireless earbuds will cost less than $100, roughly £80, which makes them much more affordable than their closest rivals.
Amazon has already demonstrated that it’s not afraid to price its hardware pretty aggressively in order to claw some marketshare from rivals. During its End Of Summer Sale, the company slashed the price of its Echo Dot speaker in half.
Fingers crossed we’ll see the same level of discounts applied to the earbuds on Black Friday.
Elsewhere, Amazon is expected to unveil a new Echo speaker with improved sound quality. The current-generation Echo is out of stock on its website and hasn’t been updated in more than two years.
Sound quality is clearly on Amazon’s mind at the moment. The company recently beat rivals Spotify and Apple Music to launch a lossless CD-quality version tier for its music streaming service, which suggests that it will offer a sound system that’s good enough to enjoy the higher quality tracks.