Amazon announced five new Echo devices on Wednesday, including its first Alexa Photo Frame and a bedside clock called the Echo Time, all available for purchase now. The lineup also refreshes three existing products: the Echo Dot at $100, the Echo Studio With Home Camera at $250, and the Echo Show 16 at $500. The Echo Time and the Alexa Photo Frame are each priced at $200. Panos Panay, Amazon's senior vice president of Devices and Alexa, said a couple hundred million people now use Alexa+, the revamped version of the decade-old voice assistant, on Echo devices.
Speaking at a media-only event in New York City, Panay said users talk to Alexa+ two to three times more than before its AI upgrade, cook with it five times more, listen to music three times more, and create routines twice as much. He said he does not think anyone is really doing AI in the home, and that those who are aren't doing it well. Amazon has been pursuing a premium strategy, having announced more premium Kindles and Alexa Tablets in early October.
The Echo Dot, once a $50 entry-level speaker, now starts at $100, higher than marked-up prices on existing Amazon devices this summer that the company attributed to the memory shortage. Panay said Amazon has sold more than 100 million Echo Dots, and that in 2026 alone people spent more than a trillion minutes listening to music on the device. The new Dot aims to boost sound, with a full-range driver Amazon says delivers 50 percent stronger bass and crisper vocals. It adds four beamforming microphones, up from three, and the AZ3 chip, plus Omnisense sensing introduced on last year's Echo Dot Max. It supports Matter, works as a Thread border router, and can act as a Wi-Fi extender with an Eero router, in four colors, three of them pastels.
The Echo Studio is Amazon's first smart speaker with a camera, a feature previously limited to Echo Show smart displays. The camera lets Alexa identify who is speaking, alongside voice recognition, for personalized responses - a function Amazon says matters as Alexa+ connects to email and calendar apps. It enables Live View home monitoring, video calls viewable through a Fire TV or smartphone, Advanced Room Adaptation for consistent volume, and visual intelligence that can identify objects shown to the camera. A button turns off the mics and camera, and an LED lights up when the camera is in use. A standard Echo Studio without a camera is also available.
The Alexa Photo Frame has a 10-inch semi-matte, anti-glare touchscreen that shows only photos, with a bottom edge that lights up when Alexa activates. It requires Amazon Photos, and users can choose who and what appears, including newly captured images. Tapping an image plays a voice note added in the Amazon Photos app, and a future update will allow voice notes directly on the frame. Amazon says software curates photos in the background, and the frame comes in black, birch, or walnut.
The Echo Time resembles the Echo Dot in size and sound but adds a 3.2-inch circular display that dims as low as 0.3 nits and has no camera. An embedded ultrasonic transducer detects breathing to identify light sleep and wake the user within 10 to 60 minutes of an alarm. The feature works only for the person closest to the device, so two sleepers need two units. Users can pick from hundreds of clock faces, set alarms with Alexa+, play soundscapes, and tap the top to snooze up to four times. Amazon also offers Kids versions of the Dot and Time with special designs, and the Kids Dot includes Amazon Kids+ content.
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