Amazon Revealed 5 New Smart Home Devices Today - Here's What They Are

Amazon has had a busy few weeks of new product launches, including a redesigned Kindle lineup and a set of new accessories. Now, the company has revamped its Echo lineup with refreshed Echo Dot, Echo Studio, and Echo Show products. It is also releasing two brand-new Echo devices: the Echo Time, which is a smart alarm clock, and the Alexa Photo Frame, which is a 10-inch digital picture frame running Alexa+, Amazon's AI-powered version of the assistant.

Prices for these new smart home devices range from $99 for the new Echo Dot to $570 for the largest Echo Show. This refreshed Echo Show follows Apple's debut of its HomeView smart display earlier in October. Here's what you need to know about all the devices in Amazon's refreshed Echo lineup.

The Echo Time is a smart alarm clock that tracks your sleep without a camera — which is ideal since this will live in the bedroom. In place of a camera, an ultrasonic transducer sends out pulses of sound too high-pitched for people to hear, then reads what bounces back. It works similarly to radar and provides the device with enough information to tell whether someone is asleep and roughly where they are in a sleep cycle.

The Echo Time can use this data to tell Alexa what time you should be up, and the device picks a moment when you're sleeping lightly to start waking you, anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes before the alarm you set. It uses light to do so but reverts to an alarm tone if the light doesn't wake you up.

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The screen is a 3.2-inch circle with hundreds of clock faces to choose from, all with under 0.3 nits of brightness at night. That's dimmer than almost any phone screen will go, which is ideal since a glowing rectangle on the nightstand would probably disturb your sleep. Amazon's Echo Time is available today for $199 in graphite, glacier white, and coral pink. A kids' version in grape and cosmic lime is also available for $209.

The Alexa Photo Frame is Amazon's other new device, designed to look like an ordinary picture frame rather than a smart display. It packs a 10-inch touch display, Alexa+, and direct access to Amazon Photos, which gives Prime subscribers unlimited photo storage. The voice assistant can see the photos in your library, so you can ask Alexa to find specific shots and display those on the frame without going through the app on your phone. You can also attach voice notes to individual pictures –for example, you could add a few seconds of your kids talking about that photo.

The touchscreen lets you swipe through an album on the frame itself. With Alexa+ on the device, you can ask the frame questions the way you would to any other Echo. Pricing starts at $199 for the model with a black frame. The version with a real birch or walnut frame costs $229. Amazon didn't give a specific availability date for the Alexa Photo Frame, so keep your eye on the product page for availability.

The Echo Dot, Amazon's best-selling Echo device, gets an upgraded speaker, a fourth beamforming microphone, and an improved noise reduction algorithm. Beamforming means the microphones focus on the direction a voice is coming from rather than listening to the whole room evenly. The fourth mic should help the Dot to pick out a command over music or sound from a television.

Amazon's new AZ3 chip is inside, which the company says should allow for faster and more natural conversations with Alexa+. Voice ID recognizes who is speaking, and the Dot can use that person's playlists and preferences instead of the household default. The Dot also works as a smart home hub, with support for Zigbee, Thread, and Matter — the smart home standards that most bulbs, plugs, and sensors use. Owning a hub lets those devices take action without routing commands through the internet first. Plus, if you own Eero routers, the Dot can double as a Wi-Fi extender for them.

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The revised Echo Dot is available today for $99 in graphite, glacier white, agave green, and coral pink. The kids' version costs $109, comes in octopus and penguin designs, and includes a year of Kids+ along with services such as Calm and Headspace.

The new version of the Echo Studio gains a camera for the first time, which Amazon says doesn't record footage. It can be used for live viewing, so you can check what the dog is doing while you're out, or use it for face recognition so the speaker can personalize conversations in the same way Apple's HomeView smart display does. Plus, Alexa+ visual intelligence lets you ask the assistant about whatever the camera is pointed at.

The camera also tunes the speaker's audio using a feature called Advanced Room Adaptation. It uses Amazon's Omnisense sensors to detect how many people are in the room and where they're sitting. Then, it can adapt the sound to the room and its acoustics, adjusting volume automatically as you move around. Most speakers run room adaptation during setup, but this system keeps it running the whole time.

The Echo Studio with Camera costs $249, and an optional stand adds $39. The original Echo Studio remains on sale, and will likely see discounts as we head towards Black Friday. It's worth deciding if you need the camera or if you could live without it and save money.

The Echo Show 16 has 80% thinner bezels, providing an extra inch of display compared to the Echo Show 15. It's also 40% thinner and comes with an optional Nanomatte display that uses the same anti-glare treatment as the Alexa Tablet Pro 12. Screen Styles let you switch the 16-inch panel between a family organizer, a photo frame, the Fire TV interface, and a smart home hub.

The new Echo Show also gains Alexa Home Map, which uses cameras to map your house and show you where each of your connected devices is — you know, just in case you forgot. Amazon's Omnisense sensors can detect when you walk into a room and adjust devices (such as the lights or your thermostat) automatically. Alexa conversations are now sorted into cards by topic, which you can pin and come back to from the Echo Show, the Alexa app, or the web.

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Audio comes from eight micro woofers and two tweeters, with four beamforming microphones. The 13 MP camera is the highest resolution that Amazon has put in an Echo Show. Alongside video calling features, it can also recognize people from up to 17 feet away. It's also the first model in the Echo lineup with night vision. Like most Echo devices, it includes a physical button to switch off the camera and the microphones. Pre-orders for the Echo Show 16 go live today, and the device will ship before the end of 2026. It costs $499 for the standard model or $569 with the Nanomatte display, though you can score a $100 discount if you pre-order. Keep in mind the Echo Show is designed to hang on a wall, so if you want a stand, it will cost $69 for a fixed model or $124 for a tilting, swiveling one.