How much does the Echo Studio with Home Camera cost?
Amazon has put a camera inside its Echo Studio speaker, giving Alexa the ability to see the room it sits in. The Echo Studio with Home Camera costs $250, which is $30 more than the version without a camera. It was one of five new Alexa devices the company unveiled Wednesday.
The audio hardware barely changed. The camera model has the same 3.75-inch high-excursion woofer and three full-range drivers as the standard Echo Studio, and both support Dolby Atmos. They also share the same four-microphone arrays, the AZ3 Pro processor Amazon introduced a year ago and the same dimensions, even though the newer model fits a 13-megapixel camera. Amazon is pitching a feature called Advanced Room Adaptation, which it says "continuously tunes the sound to your space, automatically adapting to the room's acoustics."
The camera does more than sit there. Amazon says the speaker can use it to find where you are in a room and adjust volume so that "your music or audiobook maintains the same volume as you move about." Owners can also check in on a room from their phones, which Amazon suggests might be useful for seeing "how the dog is doing or make sure you didn't leave the lights on."
How does the camera change what Alexa can do?
Amazon also wants the camera to power a new kind of interaction with Alexa. In the company's announcement, the assistant can recognize objects held up to the lens. Pull out a board game box and ask Alexa+ to explain the rules, or hold up a cereal box and Alexa can help reorder that flavor. Amazon said the speaker will eventually pair with Fire TV for video calls, but it did not say when that will happen.
Can you turn off the Echo Studio camera?
Privacy is the obvious concern. A dedicated button turns off the microphones and any camera on Amazon's Echo devices. A built-in LED lights up when the camera is streaming images or video to the cloud, and owners can disable the camera through the Alexa app while still using the speaker's voice features. Anyone who wants no camera at all can buy the standard Echo Studio, which costs $219.99.
Amazon's record with home cameras gives many buyers reason to pause. The company previously gave police access to data from Ring smart cameras without user consent. The Federal Trade Commission also alleged that Amazon employees illegally spied on Ring users. Amazon settled the FTC lawsuit for $5.8 million without admitting wrongdoing. Those episodes may push some privacy-minded customers toward camera-free products.
The camera is also part of a broader push to make Alexa pay off for Amazon. The company has said standard Alexa cost it billions of dollars, and it launched Alexa+ to turn the assistant into a tool that drives sales. Newer devices like this one are meant to handle more advanced tasks, especially those that lead to purchases on Amazon's website or through its partners.
The rest of the lineup
The new Echo Dot costs $99.99 and ships starting Wednesday. For the first time, it has a built-in smart home hub supporting Zigbee, Matter and Thread. It also includes an eero Wi-Fi extender that adds up to 1,000 square feet of coverage. Two Amazon Kids versions start at $109.99 with a year of Kids+.
The Echo Time alarm clock costs $199.99 and has a 3.2-inch round touchscreen but no camera. It uses ultrasound to sense breathing and can wake a sleeper within 10 to 60 minutes of the set alarm, with no wearable required. Amazon said sleep sensing is opt-in.
The Echo Show 16 is available to preorder starting at $499.99, or $569.99 with an anti-glare Nanomatte screen, and ships later this year. It has a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera and, for the first time on an Echo Show, night vision. Amazon said the Echo Show line is its fastest-growing Echo product family, up more than 25% year over year.
Amazon also announced Alexa Home Map, an interactive 3D model of a home built by scanning rooms with an iPhone. It displays devices, Ring and Blink cameras and a 360-degree aerial view of the property. A timeline can rewind the last 24 hours across all cameras. Home Map begins rolling out in preview later this year on iOS, the Alexa and Ring apps, larger Echo Show devices and the new Alexa Tablets. Some features require a Ring Protect Pro or Virtual Security Guard subscription.
Amazon said hundreds of millions of customers are already using its new Alexa experiences. The launches follow Amazon's relaunch of Bee earlier this month and the device price increases it made in August.
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