Amazon announced a slew of new products on Wednesday, and given that a couple of them are colorful and new, you might be tempted to look past the Echo Plus. After all, it looks just like the original Echo, only with more of a silver sheen. However, if you’re a fan of using your Echo to control your smart home, the Echo Plus might be the most important device of the bunch.

In addition to promising better sound quality than the original Echo, the Echo Plus comes with a smart home hub built-in. Essentially, Amazon is combining the functionality of its original always-listening Amazon Echo — complete with Amazon’s popular digital assistant Alexa — with functionality similar to a SmartThings or Wink Hub.

17

Just look at all of Amazon’s new Alexa devices

Cutting out the middle man

The Amazon Echo Plus has a built-in Zigbee antenna, allowing it to act as a smart home hub. Zigbee is a low-power frequency popular with small smart home sensors. The Echo Plus will be able to relay the Zigbee signals from your smart locks, lights and switches to the cloud. That will allow it to automatically sense and setup devices from smart home companies such as Philips Hue, GE, and Kwikset.

Previously, you had to buy a separate hub to get devices such as Philips bulbs connected to the internet. The Plus is letting you cut out the middle man. With hub-based systems such as SmartThings or Wink, you have to plug a boxy device that only serves as a hub into your router. The Echo Plus finally makes better use of that hardware, as you’ll still be able to give it voice commands and play music, set reminders, control your smart home or access any of Alexa’s ever-growing list of skills.

Now Playing: Watch this: Amazon unveils new Echo gadgets for your home

1:50

Availability

You can preorder the Echo Plus starting today for $150 or £140 (the US price converts to roughly AU$190). Your order will include a Philips Hue bulb. The Echo Plus will start shipping later this month.

New tricks

Once the Plus ships, you’ll be able to try out Amazon’s new smart home skills — such as routines, which allow you to trigger multiple smart home devices with a single command. You’ll also now be able to group Amazon’s devices in with your smart home gear. So you don’t have to say “Turn off the kitchen lights.” If you’re in the kitchen, and your countertop Echo is part of your kitchen group, just say “Turn off the lights” and it’ll know contextually which ones you mean. 

The Plus is just one of many devices Amazon announced on Wednesday. The company also debuted a new look Echo with swappable shells, an Echo Connect that focuses on the company’s new calling feature, an Echo Spot which is like a Dot with a screen, and a new Fire TV. Head here to check out all of Amazon’s news from the day.

‘Alexa, be more human’: Inside Amazon’s effort to make it’s voice assistant smarter, chattier and more like you.

Amazon: All things Amazon, from Echo to Prime deals.