📗 Amazon introduces a larger $499 Echo Show 16 with a Nanomatte display and Dolby Atmos surround sound
🕗 $199 Echo Time is Amazon’s first smart clock with ultrasonic sensors and smart home pairing
🔊 $99 Echo Dot improves sound quality and voice pickup with more smart home hub capability and a 1,000ft Wi-Fi extender
📺 $219 Echo Studio is Amazon’s first home-theater-grade smart home speaker
📹 $249 Echo Studio with Home Camera adds video calling, home monitoring, and visual intelligence features
🖼️ $199 Alexa Photo Frame is a smart 10-inch photo frame you can personalize as a gift
🏷️ Amazon Echo Time, Echo Dot, Echo Studio, and Alexa Photo Frame are all available to order now
📅 Amazon Echo Show 16 will release later this year
Amazon is ending a month of new products by putting the smackdown on the Apple HomeView with its own 16-inch smart home screen, the Amazon Echo Show 16.
That large 16-inch screen gives the Echo Show 16 more than double the screen real estate to the Apple HomeView’s 7.7-inch display. It puts that display to good use, offering a full Fire TV experience with its 16:9 aspect ratio for Prime Video, HBO Max, Peacock, YouTube, and more streaming apps. It also features eight custom micro woofers and two tweeters that deliver an impressively loud, cinematic sound experience.
The Echo Show 16 also features the same Nanomatte display option as the Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. Having used this display on Amazon’s tablet, you can expect glare-free viewing even in direct sunlight or under bright spotlights. Unlike matte coatings, Nanomatte uses a pixel-aligned texture that maintains black levels, so you don’t get a washed-out image on the Echo Show 16.
The Echo Show 16 also features a new custom processor with 20% more computing power, which for me translated into a smooth tapping and swiping experience. Amazon debuted its new Neo user interface that, in a word, feels bouncy. Elements smoothly shrank and expanded as I swiped left to right through Alexa+ answers to my AI questions. You can ask Alexa+ to help you do anything from scoping out your vacation to making meal plans for the week, or simply researching Halloween costume ideas, and it saves everything into a history of cards you can dive back into.
The Amazon Echo Show 16 is available for preorder starting at $499 – $569 for the Nanomatte display upgrade – and will begin shipping later this year. It can be either wall-mounted or put on a stand for $69. There’s also an adjustable swivel-and-tilt stand for $124.99.
Amazon Echo Time
Amazon also announced another Echo device with a screen in the new Echo Time. It’s quite literally an Echo Dot with a clock face, and we love that simplicity. You can still ask it questions and have it perform AI tasks through Alexa+ and use it as a radio, but the Echo Time primarily functions as a clock.
To that end, you can link the Echo Time to a smart light and have it gently turn on as your wake-up alarm approaches. Alternatively, the Echo Time can use its ultrasound sensors to detect when you’re in a lighter sleep stage and wake you up earlier so you feel less tired.
Echo Time is available today for $199.99 and comes in Graphite, Glacier White, and Coral Pink, and you can buy a color-matched adjustable stand for $39. The Amazon Kids Echo Time comes in two distinct designs – Galactic Grape and Cosmic Lime – starting at $209.99 with a one-year Kids+ subscription included.
Amazon Echo Dot
Amazon has also upgraded its most basic smart speaker, the Echo Dot. This new 2026 model features a vastly upgraded AZ3 processor, which allows it to act as a smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Matter, and Thread. At the same time, it functions as an eero Wi-Fi Extender to give you an extra 1,000 feet of coverage.
For sound, the new Echo Dot also adds a full-range driver that delivers more back volume for crisp vocals and 50% more bass than the last-generation model. It also adds a fourth microphone, letting the Echo Dot hear you better when you call for Alexa+ from another room.
The $99 Echo Dot is available today in Graphite, Glacier White, Agave Green, and Coral Pink. There are also two versions of the Amazon Kids Echo Dot, Octopus and Penguin, that start at a slightly higher $109.99.
Amazon Echo Studio
The Amazon Echo Studio has also grown up from just being a better-sounding Echo Dot to being a fully blown home entertainment speaker. Amazon’s Panos Panay demoed how a trio of these speakers could create a Dolby Atmos surround sound experience that tunes itself to the room’s acoustics using Advanced Room Adaptation. It’s all thanks to the new Echo Studio’s arrangement of three full-range drivers.
There’s also a new Echo Studio with Home Camera model that can be used for video calls and visual intelligence. For instance, you could hold up a board game and ask Alexa+ to explain the rules. Alternatively, you could have Alexa monitor your home and check if the dog is okay or if you left the room lights on.
The Echo Studio is available now for $219, and the Echo Studio with Home Camera is priced at a slightly higher $249.99.
Amazon Alexa Photo Frame
Lastly, Amazon has introduced possibly the best holiday gift, the Alexa Photo Frame. As the name suggests, it’s an Alexa-powered 10-inch digital photo frame. It includes an Alexa microphone and speaker, so you can ask Alexa to bring up photos specifically of family members or a particular vacation.
Amazon is also making the gifting process of the Alexa Photo Frame more personal by allowing users to upload a few photos and add a voice note for their recipient to hear as soon as it turns on.
The Alexa Photo Frame is available starting at $199 in Black, and $229 in real Birch or Walnut wood frames.
What’s possibly even better than the new Alexa Photo Frame is that Amazon is launching Amazon Photos, which gives anyone who signs up unlimited photo storage space for free.
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam