Amazon Refreshes Kids Tablet; Adds Visual Feature for Fire Tablets Via Update

At our deadline, Amazon still hadn’t officially committed to a date for its annual Prime Day, traditionally held in July, but it’s readying new Amazon-branded products, typically the highest-selling products during the summer promotional event available only to Prime subscribers. Amazon began taking preorders Thursday for a new Fire HD 10 Kids Edition ($199) with a Full HD screen, 32 GB storage and 10-hour battery life, it said. The kids tablet offers tools for parents, including a dashboard, discussion cards and controls that allow them to manage time limits by activity, set educational goals, adjust age filters and set a bedtime for shutdown. It also includes one year of access to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, which offers thousands of books, videos, educational apps, and games curated for age-appropriateness, plus access to websites and YouTube videos with parental control. Amazon also announced a software update for current Fire HD 8 and HD 10 tablets, called Show Mode, which provides full-screen visuals to complement voice responses from Alexa. A hardware complement to Show Mode is a charging dock for each tablet ($35, down from $39, for the Fire HD 8, and $49, down from $54, for the Fire HD 10) that acts as a viewing stand and charger. With Show Mode, users can ask Alexa to show them their calendar, video flash briefings, weather, movie trailers and camera feeds, said Amazon. The charging dock automatically switches the tablet into Show Mode, it said. A pre-Prime Day bundle offers the Show Mode Charging Dock with a Fire HD 8 tablet for $109, $10 savings; the HD 10 bundle is $189, for $15 savings. Show Mode rolls out July 2, and docks start shipping July 11, the date of last year’s Prime Day, it said. Leaked reports last week (see [Ref:1806220051]) pinned July 17 as Prime Day, with specials beginning the previous day. An Amazon spokeswoman confirmed in an email that Prime Day will return this year but didn’t confirm the July 17 date or provide other details. Amazon said in April it was raising the annual Prime membership fee 20 percent to $119 (see 1804270070).