Amazon’s 5 New Smart Home Devices: Everything You Need to Know
About two weeks after Apple unveiled its HomeView smart display and HomePod Mini 2 smart speaker, Amazon countered on Wednesday with not one, not two, but five new smart devices and a new smart home feature. Some of the new devices put a spotlight on sleep and memories, while others offer greater control over every corner of your home.
Here’s a rundown of all six new product announcements from Amazon.
Echo Time
Echo Time is a camera-free smart alarm clock powered by Alexa Plus, Amazon’s generative AI assistant. The device has hundreds of selectable clock faces and built-in sleep tracking sensors designed to monitor your rest and optimize wake-up times.
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Here’s how it works: With the optional smart alarms feature, Alexa will detect when you’re in light sleep and wake you within 10 to 60 minutes of your scheduled alarm. It uses sensor technology called Omnisense to monitor room temperature, your presence, proximity and breathing.
Echo Time received the National Sleep Foundation’s SleepMark, which is awarded to products that meet evidence-based sleep standards.
Echo Time is now available for $200 in graphite, glacier white and coral pink, with an adjustable stand sold separately for $40. Certain features will require Alexa Plus, which comes with a Prime membership ($15 a month or $139 a year).
Amazon Kids Echo Time
There’s also a version for kids, called Amazon Kids Echo Time, that lets them set alarms, ask questions, swap out clock faces and check the weather. A Sleep Studio feature offers curated bedtime content.
Parents can use the Amazon Parent Dashboard to control sleep schedules and more, as the Amazon Kids Echo Time is powered by Kids Plus, a subscription with parental controls and for content selected with kids in mind.
Available in galactic grape and cosmic lime, the Amazon Kids Echo Time starts at $210, and a one-year Kids Plus subscription is included. After that, plans start at $8 a month.
Echo Show 16
Echo Show is Amazon’s smart speaker and display. The new Echo Show 16 has a 16-inch high-definition screen, built-in Fire TV and screen styles that let you turn the Show 16 into a digital photo frame, a smart home dashboard to control all your Alexa devices or a family organizer to manage tasks, color-coded schedules and meal plans.
When compared to the Echo Show 15, the latest model has 10% more viewing area, a frame that’s about 40% thinner, 20% more computing power, upgraded audio and a new wide-angle 13-megapixel camera with the widest field of view ever offered on an Echo Show. Now, there’s also night vision.
Echo Show 16 comes with Alexa Plus, which is required for certain features and included in a Prime membership.
It will ship later this year, but the Echo Show 16 is now available for preorder with $100 off. The standard display costs $500, while the anti-glare Nanomatte version is $570. A standard stand costs $70, while a flexible swivel-and-tilt stand costs $125. Both are sold separately.
Alexa Photo Frame
The Alexa Photo Frame works with Amazon Photos to automatically sync and display your photos on its 10-inch, anti-glare, high-definition touchscreen.
It’s the first and only photo frame with Alexa built in, so you can ask Alexa to show your favorite photos based on when they were taken, their mood or who’s in them. You can also add voice notes to any photo.
The Alexa Photo Frame starts at $200. It comes with 90 days of Alexa Plus. For Prime members, Amazon Photos offers unlimited photo storage.
Echo Studio with Home Camera
The new Echo Studio speaker uses Advanced Room Adaptation to automatically adapt sound to your space, while Adaptive Volume adjusts what’s playing based on where you are in the room.
It uses the built-in Home Camera to do so, giving Alexa visual intelligence and letting you operate Live View to see your home when you’re away. In the future, you’ll be able to pair the Echo Studio with Home Camera and a Fire TV device, allowing you to take video calls on a larger screen. No specific date for this integration has been announced.
All Echo devices have a dedicated button to turn off the microphones and cameras, and visual indicators let you know when an Echo device’s camera is streaming images or video to the cloud. For those who don’t want a camera, the standard Echo Studio is still available.
Echo Studio with Home Camera is now available for $250. An optional stand is $40. The standard version is still available for $220.
Echo Dot
The new sixth-generation Echo Dot speaker delivers crisper vocals and 50% more bass than the previous model. Upgraded on-device processing and a fourth microphone allow for faster, better conversations with Alexa Plus.
For the first time, the Echo Dot also has a built-in smart home hub, so you can control compatible smart devices without a separate device.
Amazon Kids Echo Dot offers the same features as the Echo Dot, plus a year of the Kids Plus subscription included.
Echo Dot is now available for $100. Amazon Kids Echo Dot starts at $110.
Alexa Home Map
On compatible apps, Echo and Alexa devices and Fire TVs, Alexa Home Map will roll out as an interactive 3D map feature that shows both the inside and outside of your home. With a compatible Ring camera, you can see animations showing where people and cars are located. Through Ring’s Familiar Faces tool, an AI facial-recognition feature that has drawn privacy criticism, the display can identify specific recognized visitors by name.
Alexa Home Map also displays the locations of all other smart home devices, including Echo devices, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV, lights, locks and thermostats.
From the interactive map, you can check security cameras, turn off lights and monitor device activity at a glance. Visual status cues appear directly on the layout, where smart lights reflect their current brightness and color, and active smart speakers display animated musical notes.
To get started, add your address to Alexa Home Map, and it will automatically generate your home’s exterior. Using a compatible iPhone, walk through your house to map the interior. Then, manually add your devices’ locations on the map.
Later this year, Alexa Home Map will roll out in preview on its own iOS app, the Alexa and Ring apps, the Ember Artline Fire TV, new Alexa Tablets and larger Echo Show devices, including the Echo Show 16.
Certain features will require Alexa Plus, a Ring Pro subscription ($20 a month or $200 a year) or a Virtual Security Guard subscription ($99 a month) with compatible Ring cameras.
Senior Editor, Health and Home
Anna Gragert (she/her/hers) was previously the lifestyle editor at HelloGiggles, the deputy editor at So Yummy and the senior lifestyle editor at Hunker. Over the past 12 years, Anna has also written for the LA Times, Elle, Bust Magazine, Dazed, Apartment Therapy, Well+Good and more. At CNET, she's a senior editor on the Healthy Home team, and her coverage includes health, wellness tech, meal kits and home and kitchen tech with a focus on the technology that aims to help us live our healthiest, happiest lives. See full bio
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