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Several Amazon Echo Alexa Plus speakers have been observed emitting continuous 'lalala' sounds for minutes, often during user conversations. The issue has been widely reported on Reddit, with videos showing the strange behavior, and Amazon confirmed it is caused by a bug affecting a small subset of devices, with a fix underway.
Users have reported Amazon's Alexa assistant getting stuck repeating the word 'la' for several minutes before stopping, according to posts shared over the past month. This follows an earlier incident in which Alexa reportedly made unsettling growling sounds. Amazon has not yet confirmed the cause, and Android Authority says it has contacted the company for comment.
Amazon has started discounting several Alexa-powered Echo speakers and Fire TV sticks ahead of its fall Prime Big Deal Days sale scheduled for October 6-7. WIRED's testing notes that Amazon raised prices on these device categories by about $20 at the end of August, so current sale prices—some advertised as $40 off—represent smaller real savings than they appear. Most Kindles remain full price except the three Kindle Kids models, while Paperwhite, Scribe, and Eero routers are not yet discounted.
A CNET reviewer spent several months testing Amazon's Alexa Plus, Google's Gemini for Home and Apple's Siri AI for weather forecasting accuracy in a high-desert city with microclimates. The test found Alexa Plus gives the longest, most detailed responses—including wind, air quality and 'feels like' temperatures—but occasionally mispredicted rain and tended to overestimate high temperatures.
A Reddit user named PartiallyFrozen bought a first-generation Amazon Echo Spot for $4 and converted it into a custom dashboard by rooting the device, installing LineageOS, and building an Android-based interface. The AI coding tool Claude Code guided the entire process, and the finished device now displays market data, PC usage stats, speech-to-text output, and task updates by communicating with a small AI agent running on the user's computer.
Amazon unveiled a new Fire TV Stick 4K on Wednesday as part of its fall hardware lineup, featuring a slimmer body, USB-port charging, and performance Amazon says is 20-40% faster than rival streamers. The device ships with a redesigned voice remote that drops the blue Alexa button for a subtler microphone key, adds a touch-distinguishable home button, a recessed power button, a flatter D-pad, and a new favorites button.
Amazon announced a major update to its Alexa Plus AI assistant, adding a dedicated hub on Fire TV devices, improved reasoning, and the ability to factor in cultural context and viewing history when answering questions. The assistant will also gain support for follow-up questions and threaded conversations, and will extend to the Fire TV mobile app. Amazon says some features roll out in November, with others arriving in 2024.
Amazon unveiled a slimmer, faster Fire TV Stick 4K along with a redesigned remote and updated interface and app that more deeply integrate Alexa+. The company is simplifying its lineup by dropping the 'Select' and 'Plus' naming for its 4K dongles, and the new stick includes 8GB of storage, a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3/LE support.
Amazon announced that starting in November, US Fire TV users will get a new Alexa+ hub on the TV interface and mobile app, offering personalized suggestions and more complex reasoning about shows, movies and current events. The mobile app will also let Alexa+ build watchlists from shared article links, suggest titles based on uploaded photos, and deep-link directly into streaming apps. Amazon also added live content from over 40 apps and a Games Hub for cloud gaming, with global rollout planned for early next year.
Amazon has launched a new Fire TV Stick 4K priced at $60, replacing both the previous 4K Select and 4K Plus models. It supports HDR10 and HDR10 Plus, includes 8GB storage, a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, and ships with a redesigned remote that drops the dedicated Alexa button in favor of a home button. Amazon also said a premium remote with backlighting and a find-my-remote feature is coming in 2027.
Amazon has released an updated Fire TV Stick 4K with a slimmer design, a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, 8GB storage, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 support. It runs Amazon's Vega operating system with Alexa+ built in, uses Direct Power to draw power from a TV's USB port, and ships with a redesigned remote featuring an asymmetric shape and a customizable button. The device is priced at $59.99, available now in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia and the UK, with a $29.99 Prime promotional price in the US and further market rollout expected by end of October.
Amazon's second-generation Echo Auto, a dongle bringing Alexa to cars without built-in smart infotainment, is now listed as 'Currently unavailable' on its product page with no restock date given. Reddit users first noticed the device had also disappeared from direct search results on Amazon.