Amazon today unveiled five Alexa-powered devices for the home. The two genuinely new ones are Echo Time, a bedside alarm clock that tracks your sleep without needing a wearable, and Alexa Photo Frame, a 10-inch digital picture frame. There is also a completely reworked Echo Show 16, plus updates to Echo Dot and Echo Studio. Prices were given in dollars: nothing is official for Italy yet.
Echo Time: waking you in light sleep
Echo Time costs $199.99 and is already available in the United States. It has a small 2.3-inch round screen that brightens gradually before your set wake-up time, like an artificial sunrise. The interesting part is the sleep sensor, built on Omnisense, Amazon’s sensing technology: it detects sleep stages using ultrasound and tries to wake you during light sleep, in a window of 10 to 60 minutes before your alarm time.
Amazon calls it an alarm clock without a camera, and the sensing feature is optional: you can switch it off from the Alexa app or with the mute button. There is also a Kids version at around $210, with a year of Amazon Kids+ included.
Two questions remain open. Amazon has given no figures on how accurately it detects light sleep, and it hasn’t explained how the sensor copes when two people are sleeping in the bed. It’s best to wait for hands-on tests before passing judgement.
Alexa Photo Frame
The frame has a 10-inch anti-glare touchscreen and works with Amazon Photos: Alexa picks the best pictures on its own and responds to commands to show an album or a particular person. It costs $199.99 with a black frame and $229 in birch or walnut. It comes with Alexa+ built in and is available now.
Echo Show 16: big screen and Fire TV
This is the most ambitious device. The 16-inch screen has around 10% more viewing area than the previous model and is almost 40% thinner. With the Nanomatte version (about $570), reflections drop by more than 90%. Inside there is Fire TV, a 13-megapixel camera with auto-framing and night vision, and a new feature called Alexa Home Map, a 3D map of your home.
You can pre-order from $499.99, with $100 off for pre-orders, but shipping is only listed as “by the end of the year”, with no date. Stands are sold separately: $70 for the fixed one, $125 for the swivelling one.
Echo Dot and Echo Studio
The new Echo Dot costs $99.99 and adds a smart home hub with Zigbee, Thread and Matter, a fourth microphone, the AZ3 chip with an AI accelerator and about 50% more bass. It can also act as an eero Wi-Fi extender, covering up to around 90 square metres. Echo Studio with Home Camera costs $249.99 ($219.99 without the camera): the camera doesn’t record video but lets you watch your home live, recognises objects and faces, and adapts the audio to the room.
And in Italy?
Amazon has not announced euro prices or dates for the Italian market, and the press release doesn’t list the countries where the devices will be sold. Many features rely on Alexa+, which in the United States is included with Prime. On a related note, we’ve covered how Amazon is also changing its tablets with Alexa tablets running Android, and if you already use an Echo as a speaker you’ll find handy commands in our guide to the Aux input.
What we think
Echo Time is the most intriguing idea of the bunch, because it moves sleep tracking from your wrist to your bedside table. For anyone who doesn’t want to sleep wearing a watch, that’s a valid argument. But $200 for an alarm clock is a lot, and the real benefit depends on a figure Amazon hasn’t provided: how reliable the measurement is.
Echo Show 16 makes sense for anyone looking for a kitchen or living-room screen with Fire TV, but a pre-order with no date and the cost of the stands push up the effective price. The Photo Frame is the easiest to understand and probably the easiest to sell as a gift.
For us the question is a different one: how much of all this will reach Italy, and when. Until Amazon announces euro prices, the list is a preview of where the Alexa-powered home is heading, rather than a buying guide.
Written by the SpazioiTech newsroom with the help of AI tools, from facts verified across at least two independent outlets, and checked before publication. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Translated from the Italian original. Read in Italian
