Amazon adds a camera to the Echo Studio so Alexa+ can see objects and the room

Amazon announced on 28 October 2026 a reworked Echo Studio with a built-in camera, called Echo Studio with Home Camera, as part of its autumn Echo refresh. It arrives next to a new Echo Dot with a built-in smart home hub, and the wider lineup includes the Echo Show 16, Echo Time and the Alexa Photo Frame. The point of the camera is to give the Alexa+ assistant something to look at, so it can work out what is in front of it and help in the moment. Amazon is selling the camera as an extra on a speaker known for its sound, not a replacement for the audio.

“Alexa can also see and understand what's in front of the camera and help you in real time.”

Amazon, in its announcement, in a statement · aboutamazon.com ↗

Amazon's examples are everyday ones. Hold up the box of a board game and ask how to play, and Alexa+ can talk you through the rules. Hold up a cereal box and ask for it to be reordered. The idea is that the assistant stops being something you only talk to and becomes something you can show things to. Owners can also use Live View in the Alexa app to check on pets or see whether lights were left on at home. Engadget adds that the speaker can double as a webcam for personal or business calls, and video calling through a compatible Fire TV is promised for later; at a demo in New York, Amazon's devices chief Panos Panay used it to call his father.

The price is $249.99, which is $30 above the regular Echo Studio at $219.99. That cheaper model stays on sale without a camera, so buyers pay the $30 premium purely for the camera and the features that depend on it. The new Echo Dot is $99.99, and some of the features depend on Alexa+, which comes included with Prime. Amazon says sound quality is still the main reason to buy, noting that cheaper camera devices such as the Echo Show 5 already exist.

Amazon is not pitching the camera as a reason to skip the cheaper options, and the company has not changed the speaker's core design. The audio hardware is unchanged: a high-excursion woofer, three full-range drivers and Dolby Atmos support. Two software additions are new, Advanced Room Adaptation, which retunes the speaker to the room it sits in, and Adaptive Volume, which keeps the loudness steady relative to where you are as you move around.

Cameras in the living room raise the obvious privacy question, and Amazon answers with hardware. A dedicated button switches off the microphones and any included camera, and an LED lights when images or video are streaming to the cloud. The previous Echo Studio launched in autumn 2025 with Dolby Atmos and Alexa+ support, so the camera is the main change this year, with the reworked speaker replacing last year's model in the lineup and the camera-free version kept on sale for buyers who do not want one in the room. The remaining feature promised but not yet shipping is the Fire TV calling, which Amazon says is coming soon without giving a date.