Amazon Unveils Echo Time, Alexa Photo Frame and New Echo Lineup

Amazon has announced a broad refresh of its Echo range, adding two new product types, the Echo Time smart alarm clock and the Alexa Photo Frame, alongside updated speakers and a redesigned Echo Show 16.

Echo Dot and Echo Studio

The new Echo Dot gets a fourth beamform microphone, improved noise reduction and an AZ3 chip that Amazon says enables faster, more natural conversations with Alexa+. It works as a smart home hub for Zigbee, Thread and Matter devices and can extend Wi-Fi for Eero routers. It costs $99 in four colors; a kids version with a year of Kids+ and Sleep Studio costs $110.

The Echo Studio with Camera costs $250, with an optional $40 stand. Amazon says the camera does not record footage but offers a live view of your home. It supports face recognition, Voice ID and Alexa+ visual intelligence. Through Advanced Room Adaptation, it uses Omnisense to detect how many people are present and tunes audio accordingly. The standard Echo Studio stays on sale.

New categories: Photo Frame and Echo Time

The Alexa Photo Frame has a 10-inch touch display, built-in Alexa+ and integration with Amazon Photos. Users can ask Alexa to pick the best shots of a person and add voice notes. It starts at $200 with a black frame, or $229 with birch or walnut.

Echo Time, priced at $199, uses an ultrasonic transducer to detect sleep and light to wake users in line with their circadian rhythm. It can start waking you between 10 and 60 minutes before your set time, when you are in lighter sleep. It has no camera, and its 2.3-inch round screen dims below 0.3 nits. A kids version costs $210.

Echo Show 16

The Echo Show 16 is 40 percent thinner, with bezels 80 percent thinner. It offers an optional Nanomatte anti-glare display, a 13MP camera that can recognize users from up to 17 feet away, and the first night vision in an Echo Show. A new Alexa Home Map uses cameras to chart your home and its devices, and conversations are organized into pinnable cards.

Pre-orders open today at $500, or $570 with Nanomatte, with shipping by year-end and a $100 pre-order discount. Wall-mount focused, it needs a $70 stand or a $125 tilt-and-swivel stand for tabletop use.