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Amazon is reportedly making a wall-mounted Echo 'command center'

The touchscreen would serve as the hub for your smart home.

Amazon appears determined to keep experimenting with unusual Echo devices. Bloomberg sources say Amazon is crafting a large, wall-mounted Echo touchscreen device that would serve as a smart home “command center” for everything from lights through to video chats and the family calendar. It would compete against the home automation panels you’ve seen for ages, not to mention wall-mounted iPads and other tablets.

The company is reportedly toying with a screen between 10 and 13 inches across, and a profile thinner than the outgoing Echo Show. It would be more expensive than most Echo devices at $200 to $250, although that would make it a bargain compared to mounting tablets. Just when you’d see it could vary widely, though. If Amazon presses forward, you could see this wall-based Echo either in late 2021 or late 2022.

Amazon has gradually widened the Echo lineup to cover a wide range of smart home devices, including exotic concepts like a wall clock alongside more pedestrian items like higher-end speakers. A wall-mounted touchscreen would be a logical extension of that — it would address one of the few smart home spaces where Amazon doesn’t have a product of its own, and continue the company’s mission of putting Alexa in as many places as possible.