Amazon Releases NFL Echo Pop Designs
With football season in full swing and Amazon’s October shopping event happening last week, the retailer introduced a line of limited-edition NFL Echo Pop speakers. The speakers feature designs for all 32 teams and release dates for most teams will coincide with Amazon’s Thursday Night Football schedule – the first release on October 8th featured the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks – the week’s featured game. The Echo Pop speaker bundle includes the licensed NFL faceplate and sleeve.
The Circana Take:
- Licensing continues to be a driver of product interest and purchase and sports leagues are among the hottest properties. Tie-ins with recognizable brands bring some fun and customization to these smart speakers and provide an added incentive for picking up the product.
- Smart speakers have thus far seen minimal license opportunities making this Echo Pop program noteworthy.
Wake Up It’s a Me
Nintendo’s newest hardware product is not a game console but a motion-controlled alarm clock. The device called Alarmo “responds to your movements” according to the company- meaning a gesture can set the ringing alarm back to snooze while actually getting out of bed will turn off the alarm completely. The clock uses a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi radio and 24GHz mmWave sensor to detect movement and will cost $99.
The Circana Take:
- Nintendo’s Alarmo is not a gaming device and we don’t anticipate the company entering the smart device market. The use of Wi-Fi and sensors to detect movement is an interesting feature built into an alarm clock and should drive some interest towards the $99 device.
- With that said, the introduction of motion sensing in an alarm clock is interesting and provides a unique value to the clock.