Amazon Tap Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Amazon Echo Tap.

James Martin/CNET

We’ve heard reports that Amazon was working on a smaller, battery-powered version of the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Today, the online mega-retailer made it official.

The product is the Amazon Tap and, as expected, it’s a smaller, more portable, more affordable version of the popular cloud-connected speaker, complete with full access to Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant. It’ll cost $130 — $50 less than the Amazon Echo (like the Echo, the Tap is only available in the US at this point, but Amazon tells us they’d like to expand to new markets in the future).

Unlike the Echo, the Amazon Tap is totally wireless. You’ll charge it by setting it down in the included cradle, then take it wherever you want to listen to it. Amazon tells us it’ll stream up to nine hours of audio on a full charge, or last up to three weeks in standby mode.

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That battery life comes with a trade-off: The Tap isn’t an always-on, always-listening device like the Echo is. That means you can’t wake it up just by saying “Alexa” — you’ll instead need to press the microphone button on the front of the device. Once you do, you’ll enjoy full access to all of the tricks in Alexa’s toolkit (provided, of course, that you’re connected to Wi-Fi. Take Tap to the beach, and it’ll function as little more than a standard Bluetooth speaker that plays songs from your phone or tablet.)

Alexa’s tricks include streaming music from Amazon Prime Music, Pandora, and Spotify, along with streaming internet radio from TuneIn and iHeartRadio. You can also ask her to play your audiobooks from Audible or the Kindle Store, or read the morning headlines from sources like NPR, CNN and ESPN.

Amazon Devices Senior Vice President Dave Limp demonstrates the Tap at Amazon’s UX Lab in San Francisco.

James Martin/CNET

Alexa is also a growing player in the smart home. As of now, you can put her in control of Philips Hue and Lifx smart bulbs, Belkin WeMo Switches, connected home platforms like SmartThings, Wink, and Insteon and the Ecobee3 connected thermostat. A new set of developer tools for third-party manufacturers promises to bring more smart thermostats into the mix, including the popular Nest Learning Thermostat.

As for sound, the Tap promises the same sort of room-filling audio quality as the Echo. Amazon gave us a quick demonstration at its UX Lab in San Francisco. To my ear, it sounded similar to what I expect from the Amazon Echo I use in my own home. Which is to say that it’s a perfectly sufficient streamer for casual listening.

The Tap wasn’t the only new Alexa gadget Amazon announced today — there’s also the Amazon Echo Dot, which features all of the same smarts as the original Amazon Echo, but without the full-size speaker. Instead, you plug Dot into your existing audio setup, putting Alexa in control of it. That’s an intriguing solution for audiophiles who aren’t sold on the quality of the Echo or Tap’s sound.

The Tap is available for pre-order on Amazon starting today, and open to anybody who wants it, regardless of whether or not they’ve got an Amazon Prime subscription. It’s scheduled to start shipping out at the end of March.