This Alexa speaker is balls-out flash (but ridiculously expensive)
Look at this. Just look at it. You want it don’t you and you don’t even know what it is?
It’s a smart speaker, that’s what. A smart speaker with an 7.8-inch, 1920 x 1440, flexible AMOLED display wrapped around the body.
It’s from Royole, the people who beat everyone to the folding smartphone punch a couple of years back. Why? Why not, more like.
Actually, we’re not sure why.
The Royole Mirage is an Alexa smart speaker with a display. It’s pretty rare for Amazon to allow Show screens and the like for third party devices; so far only Lenovo has been privy to that sort of access with the Lenovo Smart Display 7.
And, while neither the promo visuals nor the shots we took of the device in action at CES 2020 show any sort of, er, Show action, we were assured by a Royole spokesperson that it will, indeed, ape Amazon’s Show devices.
Read this: The best smart displays
That display, which is a touchscreen, is more likely going to be used for skipping tracks, adjusting the volume, muting the speaker – all the usual physical controls you’d get on an Alexa speaker. With some funky visuals thrown in.
What we do know is that there’s also a 5MP camera on board (again why/why not) and we’re promised 360 degree audio.
We also know that the Mirage will cost $899 when it hits the shops in Q2. That’s not a typo. It’s $899. It looks cool though and you definitely want one.
To keep up to date with everything that’s happening in the smart home over in Vegas, be sure to check out our CES 2020 smart home hub.
