Remember when Amazon only sold books? Now the retail giant is poised to become a contender in the world of tech with the Amazon Echo, a speaker with the amazing ability to help you manage your busy life.

Amazon Echo, made available in the US in June 2015, is a hands-free speaker controlled using your voice. With a lightning-fast connection to the Alexa Voice Service, Echo owners can ask for musical playlists, sports scores, weather, or dinner recommendations in an instant — even from across the room.

As a speaker, Amazon Echo excels. The speaker includes dual downward-firing speakers to produce room-filling audio from any direction, and has the added accessibility of a variety of apps, including Amazon Music, Prime Music, Pandora, and iHeartRadio. Echo is Bluetooth-enabled for streaming music from iTunes via a phone or tablet.

As a personal assistant, Amazon Echo exceeds. According to the company, the Amazon Echo has seven microphones with “beam-forming technology and noise cancellation“, which helps the Alexa Voice Service hear your voice from any direction and several feet away from the device.

“When you want to use Echo, simply say the wake word and Echo lights up and streams audio to the cloud, where the Alexa Voice Service is leveraged to recognize and respond to your request instantly,” a source from Amazon said.

The Amazon Echo boasts a specific set of “skills” — the Alexa Voice Service word for apps connected to the service. Some of these include Domino’s, Uber, HuffPo, Fidelity, and more. Skills from Amazon and other third-party providers are being added daily, making the Echo smarter each time it’s launched. The Echo can also be a “hub” for your smart home with integrated services from WeMo, Philips Huge, Wink, NEST and more.

Amazon Echo has easy installation and setup, and is available through Amazon for $179.99.

Bring the future into your home, and ask us how you can integrate this device with your other home theater system pieces!

*Photo credit: Amazon