Amazon’s newest Echo smart speaker is now officially available

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships so we may get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

AmazonA quick PSA for anyone on the fence about picking up an Amazon Echo: The Amazon Tap has officially started shipping in the US. It’s available for $130.

For the uninitiated, the Tap is a more portable version of Amazon’s popular smart speaker. It has access to the same Alexa virtual assistant found on the Echo, except it’s totally wireless, built along the lines of more traditional Bluetooth speakers like the JBL Flip 3 or UE Boom 2.

Because it’s portable, the Tap has you activate Alexa through a microphone button on its front, instead of utilizing the Echo’s always-on voice recognition tech. Amazon says this change is to help preserve the Tap’s battery, which it says will survive 9 hours of audio playback.

The Tap launched earlier this month alongside another device, the Amazon Echo Dot. That $90, puck-shaped speaker works like a smaller, weaker-sounding version of the Echo on its own, but can also be plugged into existing speakers, giving them Alexa functionality.

AmazonIt, too, has started shipping, but it isn’t available on Amazon’s retail site for the time being. Instead, it can only be ordered by Amazon Prime members through Alexa itself, either with an Echo or one of Amazon’s newest Fire TV devices.

Both the Tap and Echo Dot represent efforts to further Amazon's growing reach in the home. After middling initial reviews, the Echo’s ever-expanding feature set has helped it morph into a surprising success for the ecommerce giant. Aside from helping the company collect more data on user habits, and giving those users an easy gateway to its retail channels, the Echo was the highest-selling device over $100 on Amazon last Black Friday, and one of the top five items ordered through Amazon’s Prime Now service last Christmas Eve. On the site, it currently has a 4.4 rating after 34,500 user reviews.

We’ll have reviews for these new variants in the near future.

Amazon Tap, $129.99, available at Amazon.