Baidu Fishhome Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

We’re seeing quite a few Alexa copycats at CES this year. Each promises to be unique in one way or another, but all offer the same basic tricks that Amazon Echo has offered for years — control your smart home, play music and provide personal assistance. A product called Fishhome looks at first glance to be yet another knockoff, but given that it’s from the Chinese internet giant Baidu — known as “the Google of China” — Fishhome might just have the clout to keep up.

Unlike the Amazon Echo or the Google Home, Baidu Fishhome has a large screen to display additional information after you ask a question. It also has a camera, with which it can supposedly recognize your face and customize its answers accordingly. You’ll be able to hold video chats on Fishhome, and stream videos directly to the screen.

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Otherwise, expect the usual Echo functionality. Baidu will try to get a leg up on these fronts with advanced AI for a more conversational assistant. That’s how Google tried to beat the Echo, with the conversational Google Assistant, but Alexa keeps making strides on this front as well. We’re still waiting for a digital assistant to perfect natural give-and-take-in voice commands. Perhaps Baidu can be the one to pull this off.

The Baidu Fishhome is on display at CES this week in Las Vegas. No word yet on pricing, availability or even what smart home platforms it’ll work with. We’ll update this piece with more information and hands on impressions when we have them.