Amazon has introduced new Echo smart speaker devices, including the new Echo Time smart alarm clock that is powered by Alexa+. There’s also a new version of the popular Echo Dot and the new Echo Studio with Home Camera.
Amazon Echo Time
The Echo Time smart alarm clock is designed for the nightstand with a spherical shape and 3.2-inch circular touchscreen. You can personalize on-screen information and choose from various clock faces to customize the look, from classic analog designs to soothing nature imagery and even logos from your favourite sports teams or popular entertainment franchise characters. But most importantly, there’s no camera.
Along with adjusting the look on screen with a simple Alexa command, you can also use Alexa+ to set a wake-up alarm and remind you not to forget your lunch. For bedtime, you can ask it to play relaxing music from your preferred and linked music service, even have her set the temperature from your compatible smart thermostat.
It also comes with an optional smart alarms feature designed to help you ease into the day and wake up feeling more alert. Rather than waking you at a fixed time, Alexa detects when you’re in lighter sleep and wakes you at the best moment, anywhere within 10 to 60 minutes of your set alarm. It’s powered by Omnisense, Amazon’s own sensor fusion technology, including room temperature sensors, presence detection, and ultrasound that detects breathing and proximity. You can choose from a variety of customizable alarm tones, each starting quietly and building in energy with every snooze, up to four times.
Echo Time’s display also adapts automatically throughout the day. In the morning, it mimics a natural sunrise, gradually brightening as your alarm approaches to ease you gently awake. In the evening, it shifts to night mode, dimming to show just the time or your next alarm, and reducing blue light to help you fall and stay asleep.
Echo Time also comes in a version specifically designed for kids. Called Amazon Kids Echo Time, it’s powered by Amazon Kids+ and allows kids to set their own alarms, check the weather before school, ask questions, and swap out clock faces. Bedtime support comes through Sleep Studio, with curated wind-down content from Calm, Headspace, and Moshi. Parents have control of the experience and can set sleep schedules through the Amazon Parent Dashboard so wind-down begins automatically. Older kids can say, “Alexa, play Sleep Studio.”
The Amazon Echo Time is available for $346.98 with an included stand or $289.99 without the stand. It comes in Graphite, Glacier White, and Coral Pink. Amazon Echo Time Kids is $299.99 and comes in Galactic Grape and Cosmic Lime with a one-year Kids+ subscription included.
Amazon Echo Dot
The Amazon Echo Dot has a built-in smart home hub, ideal for placement on a desk, in the kitchen, home office, or garage. It’s a compact, spherical speaker wrapped in 3D knit, audio-transparent fabric. The full-range driver built into the housing creates more back volume for crisp vocals and 50% more bass than the last generation.
For the first time, Echo Dot is powered by AZ3, Amazon’s custom-designed silicon, enabling advanced on-device processing for faster, more natural conversations with Alexa+. With the addition of a fourth microphone, Alexa can better hear you as you move around the room, even in busy environments. Voice ID can recognize who’s speaking and personalize your experience, like playing your favourite playlist instead of your partner’s.
With the Omnisense custom sensor fusion platform, Echo Dot can sense the environment around it, detecting things like room temperature and presence to be more responsive, like turning up the thermostat when the room is too cold, or turning on the lights as you walk in.
The built-in smart home hub allows you to more easily connect to and control thousands of compatible smart home devices without needing a separate hub. A built-in eero Wi-Fi extender adds up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your existing eero network, helping to eliminate dead zones.
The Kids variant has the same features and includes one year of Kids+ with unlimited access to age-appropriate Audible audiobooks, ad-free music and radio stations, and kid-friendly podcasts. There are also Stories with Alexa where kids propose characters and plots that turn into one-of-a-kind narrated stories. Sleep Studio plays curated wind-down content from Calm, Headspace, and Moshi. Parents can set up a child profile that lets kids ask Alexa questions, with every response tailored to be age appropriate.
The new Amazon Echo Dot is available for $144.99. It comes in Graphite, Glacier White, Agave Green, and Coral Pink. The Echo Dot Kids is $159.99 and comes in Octopus and Penguin.
Echo Studio with Home Camera
As Amazon’s most advanced speaker, Echo Studio with Home Camera has a high-excursion woofer for immersive bass, three optimally placed full-range drivers, and Dolby Atmos support. New Advanced Room Adaptation continuously tunes the sound to your space, automatically adapting to the room’s acoustics, while Adaptive Volume adjusts to where you are so your music or audiobook maintains the same volume as you move about.
With the addition of a built-in camera, Alexa gains visual intelligence. Live View in the Alexa app lets you check in on the room when you’re away, to see how the dog is doing, for example, or make sure you didn’t leave the lights on. Alexa can also see and understand what’s in front of the camera and help you in real time. Pull out a board game box and ask Alexa+ to explain the rules or hold up a cereal box and Alexa can recognize it and help you re-order it. Soon, you will also be able to pair the Echo Studio with Home Camera with a compatible Fire TV to bring video calls to the big screen.
The Amazon Echo Studio with Home Camera comes in Graphite and sells for $329.99.