Today Amazon hosted its fall hardware event, and it starred a range of new Echo smart speakers.
The all-new Amazon Echo comes with a updated form factor. It ditches the tube shape that all Echo speakers have had so far in favor of a sphere shape. Amazon says it made this change because people put Echo speakers in busy places of their homes and so "it's important that we design devices that fit beautifully into any room of the home."
This updated Echo has an LED ring at its base to let you know when its listening and includes a built-in smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Amazon Sidewalk. It also includes a new Amazon-made AZ1 Neural Edge processor that powers a new speech recognition model that Amazon says will help Alexa process your requests faster.
Another area where the new Echo is improved is sound quality. Amazon says it sounds "significantly better" thanks to its 3-inch woofer, dual-firing tweeters, and Dolby processing. The new Amazon Echo also includes the same feature as the pricier Echo Studio that can sense the acoustics of your space and tune audio playback to make music sound better.
The new Amazon Echo is available for pre-order today for $99.99 and will launch on October 22. It'll be available in Charcoal, Glacier White, and Twilight Blue color options.
Amazon also announced a new Echo Dot today that also gets the new sphere shape and fabric finish. Because of the smaller size, it's got a 1.6-inch front-firing speaker, and it has the same LED ring light base as the regular Echo. There's a new Echo Dot with Clock, too, that adds an LED clock display.
The Echo Dot Kids Edition takes that same new Echo Dot hardware and adds fun panda and tiger prints. It comes with a custom-built Alexa experience targeted at kids, letting them call approved friends and family and set animal alarm sounds. The Echo Dot Kids Edition comes with a one-year Amazon Kids+ subscription that offers thousands of hours of educational content like Audible books and interactive games.
The updated Echo Dot is available for pre-order today for $49.99 and it, too, will ship on October 22. The Echo Dot with Clock and Echo Dot Kids Edition will cost $59.99 each, with the former shipping on November 5 and the latter on October 22.
Lastly, there's a new Echo Show 10 smart display. It features a 10-inch HD display and built-in 13MP camera for video calls. There's also a built-in motor that Amazon says is completely silent, allowing the Echo Show 10 to follow you wherever you are in the room and keep you in frame during video calls and keep you in frame.
The Echo Show 10 can also use its camera to periodically pan around your room and send you a Smart Alert if it detects someone in its field of view. You can access a live feed of that camera any time you want, too, using another Echo Show device or the Alexa app on your smartphone. This allows you to pan around the room and zoom in and out.
When it comes to sound quality, the Echo Show 10 features dual front-firing tweeters and a woofer. It's got directional sound that, like the new Echo speakers, can adapt to your space. And using that built-in motor, the Echo Show 10 can make sure that your display is always facing you when you're watching a show.
Speaking of watching shows, Amazon announced today that Netflix is coming soon to the Echo Show 10.
The Echo Show 10 is available for pre-order today for $249.99 and will launch later this year.
