Amazon’s Echo Buds bring Alexa to your earholes

Amazon had a lot of surprises at this morning’s big event in Seattle. This one, however, we saw coming from a mile away. Echo Buds are the company’s attempt to compete with the likes of AirPods by bringing its smart assistant directly to wearers’ ears.

Priced at $129, the wireless earbuds are relatively inexpensive as far as brand names go. We can’t really speak to quality right now, but Amazon has teamed up with Bose for these to bring active noise cancellation. That’s accessible with a tap, similar to what Sony introduced with its own earbuds.

The product is clearly designed to help Alexa grow outside of the home, a market the company hasn’t captured as well as native mobile assistants like Siri and Google Assistant. That said, Amazon is also giving users the ability to access those assistants native to the user’s mobile phone.

As with the rest of the products announced at the event, Echo Buds are available for pre-order starting today.