Amazon Unveils 5 New Alexa Devices: Echo Show 16 Leads

Amazon has unveiled five new Alexa devices in one of its biggest smart home hardware refreshes in years. The lineup is led by the Echo Show 16, a 16-inch smart display with Fire TV built in, and it also introduces two entirely new product categories: the Echo Time bedside clock and the Alexa Photo Frame. A new Echo Dot and a camera-equipped Echo Studio complete the range, and every device is built around Alexa+, Amazon’s more conversational AI assistant.

The launch lands at a moment of renewed competition in the smart home. Apple launched its $299 HomeView display earlier in October, with stores set for November 13, and Amazon is clearly answering with a broader, cheaper-to-enter range that puts a hub, a camera, or a screen in more rooms of the house.

Echo Show 16: Amazon’s biggest smart display yet

The Echo Show 16 is the headline device. It has a 16-inch full HD display with 10 percent more viewing area than the Echo Show 15, in an aluminum frame Amazon says is nearly 40 percent thinner. An optional Nanomatte finish is designed to reduce glare by more than 90 percent, which should help in bright kitchens and living rooms where smart displays often struggle.

Fire TV is built in, and a remote is included, so the Show 16 doubles as a small television. Three Screen Styles let it serve as a family organizer, a photo frame, or a smart home dashboard. That dashboard view includes Alexa Home Map, a 3D view of connected devices around the home, turning the display into a visual control panel for lights, locks, and cameras rather than just a list of device names.

A 13MP camera adds auto-framing for video calls and night vision for checking the room through the Alexa app, making it Amazon’s first Echo Show camera with night vision. The standard model lists for $499.99 and the Nanomatte version for $569.99, but Amazon is offering $100 off preorders, bringing those prices to $399.99 and $469.99. Shipping begins later this year, and stands are sold separately, starting at $69.99.

Echo Time: a bedside clock that watches your sleep

Echo Time is the most unexpected device in the lineup. The camera-free bedside clock has a 3.2-inch circular touchscreen with hundreds of clock faces. Its display gradually brightens as an alarm approaches and dims at night, a gentler take on the wake-up experience than a phone alarm.

The headline feature is optional Omnisense sleep sensing, which uses ultrasound to detect breathing and proximity. Amazon says it can choose a wake-up time when the user is in lighter sleep, without requiring a wearable device. Sleep sensing is opt-in and can be disabled in the Alexa app or with the microphone mute button, an important detail for a bedroom device that listens and senses while you sleep.

Echo Time also doubles as a smart home hub, with support for Zigbee and Matter and a Thread border router on board. It costs $199.99 in Graphite, Glacier White, and Coral Pink, and a Kids version starts at $209.99 with one year of Amazon Kids+ included.

Echo Dot: now a smart home hub and Wi-Fi extender

The new Echo Dot looks much like the previous spherical model, but Amazon calls it the most capable Dot yet, and the changes are under the surface. For the first time, the Dot includes a built-in smart home hub with Zigbee, Matter, and Thread support, so it can connect compatible devices directly without a separate hub.

Its eero extender can add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to an existing eero network, rather than acting as a general-purpose extender for any router. That distinction matters: the extender feature is designed for homes already on eero, not as a universal Wi-Fi fix.

Amazon’s custom AZ3 chip brings more on-device processing for faster, more natural conversations with Alexa+, and a fourth microphone helps the speaker hear commands amid background noise. The company claims 50 percent more bass than the previous generation, thanks to a full-range driver built into the housing that creates more back volume for crisper vocals. Voice ID can recognize who is speaking and personalize the experience, while Omnisense sensing detects room temperature and presence, so Alexa can respond to the environment, for example by turning up the thermostat when a room is too cold or turning on lights as someone walks in.

The new Echo Dot costs $99.99 in four colors, with Kids editions at $109.99 including one year of Kids+.

Echo Studio with Home Camera: Alexa can now see

The Echo Studio with Home Camera adds visual intelligence to Amazon’s best-sounding speaker. Alexa can identify an item held in front of it, help explain a board game, or show a live view of the room in the Alexa app, letting owners check in while away. Amazon gives the example of holding up a cereal box so Alexa can recognize it and help reorder more, and pairing with a compatible Fire TV device for video calls on the big screen is planned for a later update.

The audio hardware is otherwise unchanged from the previous Studio: a woofer, three full-range drivers, and Dolby Atmos spatial audio, with Advanced Room Adaptation continuously adjusting sound to the room. A button disables the microphones and camera, and an LED indicates when images or video are being streamed to the cloud, which are sensible privacy controls for a speaker with a camera in the living room.

The camera-equipped model costs $249.99, while the version without a camera remains $219.99.

Alexa Photo Frame: the first frame with Alexa built in

The Alexa Photo Frame is the second brand-new category in the lineup. The 10-inch anti-glare touchscreen automatically syncs selected people or albums from Amazon Photos. Owners can ask for pictures of a person, pet, or trip, swipe through photos, and add voice notes to preserve the story behind a picture.

Alexa+ can select seasonal images and filter out screenshots and receipts, addressing the usual problem with digital frames: a slideshow cluttered with images nobody meant to display. Pricing starts at $199.99 in Black or $229 for real Birch or Walnut frames, and ninety days of Alexa+ are included. Across the new lineup, certain features require Alexa+, which is included with Prime, and Prime also includes unlimited full-resolution photo storage in Amazon Photos.

What the lineup means for the smart home

Three themes run through the whole range. First, the hub is disappearing into everyday objects: the Echo Dot and Echo Time both act as Matter, Zigbee, and Thread hubs, so buyers no longer need to think about buying a separate hub to start a smart home. Second, Alexa+ is now the organizing idea, with on-device processing on the AZ3 chip, Voice ID personalization, and visual understanding on the Studio all designed to make conversations feel more natural and useful.

Third, Amazon is betting that screens belong everywhere, not just in the kitchen. A 16-inch wall display, a bedside clock, and a photo frame each put Alexa in a different room and a different moment of the day, from the morning alarm to the evening photo slideshow. That breadth is also a direct answer to Apple, whose HomeView is smaller at 7 inches and focused on the Home app, while Amazon’s range spans $99.99 to $499.99 and covers speakers, displays, clocks, and frames.

There are trade-offs to weigh. Camera-equipped speakers and sleep-sensing clocks ask for more trust than a plain speaker, even with mute buttons, LED indicators, and opt-in sensing. And the most advanced features depend on Alexa+, so buyers should check which features need a subscription before assuming everything works out of the box. Still, as a statement of where Amazon thinks the smart home is heading, this is a confident one: more hubs, more screens, and an assistant that can see, sense, and act, not just listen.

• Echo Show 16: from $499.99, or $399.99 on preorder, with Nanomatte at $569.99 ($469.99 on preorder)
• Echo Time: $199.99, Kids version from $209.99
• Echo Dot: $99.99, Kids editions $109.99
• Echo Studio with Home Camera: $249.99, camera-free version $219.99
• Alexa Photo Frame: from $199.99 in Black, $229 in Birch or Walnut