
Amazon Echo Show - artsandsci
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J24C0TI
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Flammy
> With eight microphones, beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation,
> Echo Show hears you from any direction—even while music is playing

I've never heard of 'beam-forming'...

From wikipedia:

> Beamforming or spatial filtering is a signal processing technique used in
> sensor arrays for directional signal transmission or reception.[1][2] This
> is achieved by combining elements in an antenna array in such a way that
> signals at particular angles experience constructive interference while
> others experience destructive interference. Beamforming can be used at both
> the transmitting and receiving ends in order to achieve spatial selectivity.
> The improvement compared with omnidirectional reception/transmission is
> known as the directivity of the array.

> Beamforming can be used for radio or sound waves. It has found numerous
> applications in radar, sonar, seismology, wireless communications, radio
> astronomy, acoustics and biomedicine. Adaptive beamforming is used to detect
> and estimate the signal-of-interest at the output of a sensor array by means
> of optimal (e.g. least-squares) spatial filtering and interference
> rejection.

So if I'm reading that right, it is to detect nearby humans based on their
impact on existing wifi signals? Is that correct?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamforming)

~~~
ClassyJacket
I believe they mean it hears human speech by applying beamforming on the sound
from multiple microphones.

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lorenzhs
The discussion is happening at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299893](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14299893)
\- the two threads were submitted seconds apart

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jaboutboul
Amazon is killing it!

