Amazon has put a camera in the Echo Studio, which it calls its best-sounding smart speaker, so its Alexa+ assistant can see. Alexa+ is the newer version of Amazon's voice assistant, built to hold more natural conversations. The Echo Studio with Home Camera, one of five Alexa devices Amazon announced on Oct. 28, can recognize what is in front of it and help right away, the company says. Hold up a board game box and ask Alexa+ to explain the rules, or hold up a box of cereal and it can recognize the cereal and help you reorder more flavors.
The camera also works as a home camera: with Live View in the Alexa app, owners can check on the room while they are away, to see how the dog is doing or whether the lights were left on, Amazon says. Amazon also says the speaker will soon work with some Fire TV devices for video calls on the TV, but has not said when.
The Echo Studio with Home Camera went on sale on Oct. 28 for $249.99. The regular Echo Studio, which has the same sound system and no camera, stays on sale for $219.99, so the camera costs $30 more. Some features need Alexa+, which Amazon includes with a Prime membership.
The other new devices lean on Alexa+ too. A new $99.99 Echo Dot gets a chip that runs some AI on the speaker itself to pick out speech from background noise, and can connect directly to thousands of compatible smart home devices such as lights, locks and thermostats. Amazon also opened preorders for an Echo Show 16 display starting at $499.99, and announced an Echo Time bedside clock at $199.99 and an Alexa Photo Frame.
Amazon says a button on every Echo turns off its microphones and any camera, and a light on the new Studio turns on whenever it is sending pictures or video to Amazon's cloud. Amazon's announcements do not say how long those pictures are kept, or whether Amazon uses them to improve Alexa.