Amazon's Alexa, Echo, and the all-new Echo Dot are now available in the UK and Germany. Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are voice-controlled speakers designed entirely around your voice. Alexa is the brain behind Echo and Echo Dot-just ask, and she’ll answer questions, play music, read the news, set timers and alarms, recite your calendar, check sports scores, control lights around your home, and much more. With far-field voice control, Echo and Echo Dot can do all this from across the room. Since Alexa runs in the cloud, she is always getting smarter-plus, it is free for developers to build Alexa skills and integrate Alexa into their own products. In the US, there are already over 3,000 skills available for Alexa.

The new version of the Echo Dot announced today is available for under $50. Just like Echo, Echo Dot gives you access to all of Alexa’s capabilities, it is available for pre-order at www.amazon.com/echodot and will begin shipping in the U.S. next month.

Echo Dot has a new sleek and compact design, comes in either black or white. With its built-in speaker, you can place Dot in the bedroom and use it as a smart alarm clock that can also turn off your lights. Or use Dot in the kitchen to set timers, ask for measurement conversions and recipes, and shop for tens of millions of Amazon products using just your voice.

With the same array of seven microphones found in Amazon Echo, Dot uses beam-forming technology and enhanced noise cancellation to detect the wake word, Alexa, from across the room. The new Echo Dot features a more powerful speech processor, which delivers improved far-field speech recognition accuracy.

Echo Dot can directly connect to speakers through Bluetooth or using a 3.5mm stereo cable, enabling you to add Alexa to your home entertainment system. Then, use just your voice to control Amazon Music, Prime Music, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more.

Use Echo Dot to turn on the lamp before getting out of bed, change the temperature without leaving your chair, or dim the lights from the couch to watch a movie—all with just your voice. Echo Dot works with smart home devices such as lights, switches, fans, thermostats, garages, sprinklers, and more from smart home providers including Philips Hue, ecobee, TP-Link, Insteon, WeMo, Lutron, TrackR, Luma, Nest, Wink, Honeywell, Samsung SmartThings and Garageio.

Echo and Echo Dot will start shipping in the UK in the coming weeks. In Germany, Echo and Echo Dot are available by invitation for customers who want to help shape Alexa as she evolves-the devices will start shipping next month.