Of course Amazon wants you to own an Echo device. But not just one. The company really, really hopes to get one into every room of its customers’ homes. That’s where the second generation of the Echo Dot comes in — $50 a pop, and even cheaper if you buy them in packs of six or twelve. Granted, I live in New York City, but that roughly works out to four Dots per room for me. It’s a lot. Perhaps overkill, even.
It’s a bit of an issue, of course, when those products start competing for your attention — a kind of, “oh no, I have too many robot helpers in my home” problem, but a problem nonetheless. Last month, Amazon announced a fix in the form of the scientifically sounding Echo Spatial Perception. The feature essentially helps the device know which one of the devices is closest to the person trying to get Alexa’s attention.
Amazon has officially started rolling out the feature to some of its devices today. ESP will hit first-generation Echoes and Dots first, with another round coming to generation two in the coming weeks.