Amazon seems to be the early winner of the home AI assistants market. The Alexa-based products are best sellers over on Amazon, and the company isn’t done creating devices that incorporate its voice recognition and AI technology. If that’s not enough, other device makers are coming up with their own creations to compete against the Echo family of products. Google has a Google Home device, and Apple is also expected to soon launch a competitor for Amazon Echo. Then, there’s a variety of other companies that are making a particular kind of Amazon Echo rivals: Devices that are powered by the same Amazon voice service.
One of the companies which integrated Amazon’s Alexa tech in a smart speaker is GE. Rather than develop its own AI, GE is apparently happy to simply use the tried and trusted Alexa assistant.
However, its GE Sol Lamp is actually more expensive than Amazon’s Echo. At $200, that’s quite a pricey assistant, considering that it’s basically Alexa dressed in different clothes. You might be better off just buying the Amazon Echo, Dot, or Look from Amazon directly. On the other hand, if you do preorder the GE Sol, you’ll pay $160, or 20% of the regular price, but you still have to wait until September for it to arrive.
In addition to supporting all the Alexa tricks you expect from an Alexa speaker, the Sol also doubles as a lamp, and it’s a good looking one too.
The C by GE Sol Lamp — that’s actually the officially annoying name of the product, is available for preorder at this link
By the time the Sol Lamp actually ships, we might have other real Amazon Echo killers in stores, including Google’s second-generation Home speaker and Apple’s rumored Siri speaker.
