Amazon Prices Screen-Led Echo Line, Sets $499.99 for Display Model

Amazon is putting screens at the center of its latest Echo hardware, with one exception: a premium speaker that trades a display for a camera. Four of the five products announced this week are on sale now, while the flagship Echo Show 16 arrives December 16. Preorders for that model carry a $100 discount off the $499.99 price.

The Echo Show 16 carries eight woofers and a Nanomatte display option that raises the price to $569.99 with the included wall mount. It runs the full Fire TV interface by touch and adds revised smart home controls, a new calendar layout, and a customizable photo frame mode. The Echo Time, a baseball-sized speaker with a 3.2-inch screen, sells for $199.99 and includes sleep sensing plus touchscreen alarm entry, so users can silence or set alarms without speaking. Amazon also sells an Alexa Photo Frame at $199.99 in black, or $229 with a birch or walnut frame, and an Echo Dot redesign. The Alexa Photo Frame pulls pictures from Amazon Photos and, unlike Echo Show screens, never shows ads.

Panos Panay, who leads Amazon's devices group, called the Alexa Photo Frame "the world's smartest photo frame." The frame also works as an Alexa speaker. Amazon Photos provides unlimited storage for Prime members and requires no other subscription; the app backs up photos from Android and Apple devices and imports from iCloud Photo, though Google Photos imports are not supported.

The Echo Studio with Home Camera adds a built-in camera to Amazon's premium speaker for room monitoring and showing objects to Alexa, with video calls to Fire TV devices planned. Amazon paired it with Advanced Room Adaptation, which adjusts sound to a room, and Adaptive Volume, which keeps a book or music at one level as people move. The Alexa Home Map now renders a home's interior and exterior in 3D, uses Ring cameras for a 360-degree view that animates nearby cars and people, and shows the locations of Echo devices, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV, lights, locks, and thermostats. It replaces the 2D map Amazon added to the Alexa app in 2023.

Amazon spread its hardware announcements across October rather than holding one fall event, releasing Fire TV devices, Kindles, the Alexa Tablet Pro 12, Ring's first smart lock, hardware from Bee, and Blink 4K cameras earlier in the month. Reporters gathered this week in New York City's financial district for the Echo products. Alexa Plus, the AI-powered version of the assistant, became available to all US users in February.

The Echo Show 16 opens for preorder at $499.99 with a $100 discount and ships December 16. The Echo Dot, Echo Studio with Home Camera, Echo Time, and Alexa Photo Frame are on sale now.