Amazon’s Announces Echo Show 16, Echo Time Smart Clock, and Alexa Photo Frame

Amazon announced no less than five new smart home products today, including new versions of its Echo Dot, Echo Studio, and Echo Show, plus a brand new Echo Time bedside clock and Alexa Photo Frame. The company also previewed a new Alexa Home Map interface for managing smart home devices that will start rolling out later this year.

Let’s start with the new $99.99 Echo Dot, which replaces the 5th gen Echo Dot (without clock) from 2022. This new version is still cheaper than the $119.99 1st gen Echo Dot Max that was released last year, but it’s $20 more expensive than the previous model. While the design is identical, this 6th gen Echo Dot now includes a built-in smart home hub and eero Wi-Fi extender to improve the coverage area of existing Wi-Fi networks. Amazon also mentioned the addition of a fourth microphone and a new custom Z3 chip with an AI accelerator that improves conversational detection. Lastly, the built-in full-range driver delivers 50% more bass than its predecessor.

Amazon also introduced a new version of its premium Echo Studio speaker with a built-in camera to give visual intelligence capabilities to Alexa. “With more awareness of its surroundings, Alexa can help in real time—explaining the rules on a board game box you hold up, recognizing a box of cereal to help you reorder it, or letting you check in on the room from the Alexa app while you’re away,” Amazon explained today.

This new $249.99 Echo Studio with Home Camera comes with a dedicated button for turning off the microphones and the camera. The regular Echo Studio without a camera remains available for $219.99.

Instead of a built-in camera, I wish that Amazon brought back an Echo speaker with a built-in clock, and we almost got that today with the new Echo Time. This is an Echo speaker with a 3.2-inch circular touchscreen, similar to the original Echo Spot, and it’s designed to sit on nightstands. However, its $199.99 launch price is probably too much to ask compared ot the $109.99 second-gen Echo Spot.

Compared to the latest Echo Spot, the new Echo Time offers a much wider choice of over 100 clock faces, including analog, digital, classic, modern, and more playful designs. The display will automatically adapt to the time of day, and the Echo Time also offers a new sleep-sensing technology with smart alarms that adapt to users’ sleep routine.

As Apple is about to enter the smart display market with its $299 HomeView, Amazon is striking back with the Echo Show 16, its most advanced smart display yet with a $499.99 starting price. This new Echo Show is nearly 40% thinner than the Echo Show 15, and a new Nanomatte option priced at $569.99 can cut glare by more than 90%. Amazon also integrated a new wide-angle 13-megapixel camera that can see through the night and recognize people from eight to up to 17 feet.

This new Echo Show 16 comes with a wall mount and an Alexa remote, and it offers the full Fire TV experience. It also supports three new Screen Styles: Smart Home, Family Organizer, and Photos. It’s still possible to disable the microphones and camera, and Amazon also included a clear visual indicator to show when Alexa is being used.

The Alexa Photo Frame is the last product Amazon announced today, and it’s an elegant 10-inch touch display that integrates with Alexa and Amazon Photos. The Alexa Photo Frame is available starting at $199.99 in Black and $229.00 in real Birch or Walnut wood frames, and users can either choose which people they want to feature or let Alexa+ intelligently pick the best pictures to show.

Lastly, Amazon detailed today a new Alexa Home Map that will launch in preview later this year on the new Alexa Home Map app for iOS, the Alexa and Ring apps, select Echo Show devices, the Amazon Ember Artline with Fire TV, and the new Alexa Tablets. It will work as an interactive 3D map showing Echo devices, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV devices, and other connected smart home devices. The map will be updated dynamically and let users control all of their smart home devices from an easy-to-use interface.