Amazon puts a camera in its flagship Echo Studio speaker

Amazon’s new Echo Studio combines Dolby Atmos audio with a built-in camera that lets Alexa identify objects, answer visual questions and monitor the home remotely.

Amazon has expanded its Alexa hardware range with a new Echo Studio that keeps sound quality at the centre of the device while adding a built-in Home Camera. According to Amazon, the speaker combines a high-excursion woofer with three full-range drivers and Dolby Atmos support to produce a more immersive spatial audio experience than the company’s standard smart speakers.

The bigger shift is the camera. Amazon says Alexa can now use it to observe the speaker’s surroundings, allowing the assistant to describe what it sees and respond in real time. That includes practical tasks such as explaining the rules of a board game when a box is held up to the lens, or identifying a product package and helping a user reorder it. The Alexa app also lets owners check the camera feed remotely, bringing a home-monitoring function to a product that was previously aimed mainly at audio playback.

Amazon is also promising more sophisticated room correction. The company says the new Echo Studio continuously adjusts its sound output to suit the acoustics of the space around it, while adaptive volume is designed to keep playback level consistent as the listener moves around the home. The same hardware can later be linked to a compatible Fire TV device for video calls on a television screen, once a future software update arrives.

The new model is on sale in graphite in the United States for $249.99. That places it above the existing Echo Studio’s traditional role as Amazon’s flagship speaker, which reviewers have long praised for strong bass, Dolby Atmos playback and a comparatively full-bodied sound profile. Amazon has not yet given a release date for France, leaving European availability unclear for now.