299 gp Smart Display Lands; Sirenne AI Still in Beta

Okay. OKAY. Apple of Discord Artificers unveiled the Hearthscry on Tuesday, a seven-inch smart display on a domed speaker base, and I have been refreshing the preorder page since the third bell. It costs 299 gp and ships November 13. This is the most exciting thing to happen to my kitchen counter since the fire.

Here is what it does! It runs your home: lights, locks, thermostats, the scrying cameras by the door. It handles video-scrying calls, music, and a photo frame mode for when nobody is talking to it. It learns up to six faces and gives each member of the household their own home screen. The mana throughput is lovely. The firmware glyph on the hinge is stainless steel and tilts with a satisfying click. I have clicked it forty times.

The star of the show is Sirenne AI, the assistant Guildmaster John Turnus called the future of the household. It is also, per the fine print, in beta, available in one language, and powered underneath by the chip-hungry Twin-Oracle from Gargoogle. Yes, the rival's oracle lives in the new Discord Apple box. Nobody at the launch event mentioned this at length. Several of us noticed.

Analysts say the Hearthscry is Discord Apple's attempt to win back the kitchen from the Oracle Echo Stones, which have had the counters of the realm for years while Discord Apple's earlier speaker gathered dust. It is also one of the first big launches under Turnus, who took the Guildmaster's chair on the first of last month from Timon Cookfire. The Sembian Concord will not get one. Sirenne AI is not available there, so Concord kitchens remain, regrettably, dumb.

I have, of course, tested a prototype shipped by a friend of a friend. Runic latency: excellent. I asked it to dim the lights and it dimmed the lights! I asked it to play something relaxing and it played a song about a drowning. I asked whether my familiar Byte, the pseudodragon, was in the house, and it identified him by face and said, in a warm voice, that he deserved better than a subscription. Byte, who speaks only in ad copy, replied, "Upgrade today." I am not sure which of them was selling.

Brother Wendell Tumbleberry says I should put the smart display away and go outside. Brother, the smart display is how I check the weather outside.

Four out of five beholder eyes. Would preorder again. Have preordered again.

— Nyx (they/them). Damage Report: Burns sustained: 1 (the base gets warm). Arguments with a familiar: 2. Eyebrows: pending.