When I first heard about this, I almost laughed. Sears -- the boring department store -- is trying to compete with the likes of Amazon Echo and Google Home? B

When I first heard about this, I almost laughed. Sears -- the boring department store -- is trying to compete with the likes of Amazon Echo and Google Home? But it actually seems like they've cooked up something much more interesting than you would think, especially considering the price. It's a low-budget device (1/6th the cost of an Echo) that uses both automation (natural language processing) and human assistants (a la Magic+) to do shopping research. But unlike Magic+, there are no fees associated with using the service, apart from the cost of the device. Obviously, Alfie's range of services are more limited than those of Magic+ ... but Magic+ charges $100/hr.