Amazon has launched a $250 Echo Studio with a camera that lets Alexa+ respond to what it sees, as well as monitor a room when nobody is home. The useful new capability comes with an obvious question: how much of a home should an assistant be able to see?
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The new Echo Studio with Home Camera can act as a security camera when users are away, or let Alexa+ interpret things in view. Amazon’s examples include explaining the rules of a board game and helping someone reorder a product shown to the camera. The device is available now for $250.
A later update is planned to let Echo Studios work with Amazon Fire TVs for video calls displayed on the television. The speaker also has a dedicated button that cuts power to its camera and microphones, plus an LED that indicates when the camera is streaming. Amazon told ZDNET that the camera is enabled only when a user activates a feature that uses it.
Why it matters
This puts visual AI in a familiar household device, rather than asking people to buy a separate camera or assistant. That could make hands-free help more useful, but it also brings a camera into the living room with the rest of the smart-home kit.
The physical power cut is a meaningful control, not a magic eraser for every privacy question. It disables the smart functionality too, and Amazon’s account of when the camera activates is the company’s own explanation of how it works.
Our read
The most compelling part is also the part worth scrutinising: Alexa+ can use a camera view to answer practical questions. Amazon has made the off switch visible and straightforward, which is better than burying it in a settings maze. Whether people want that trade-off in a speaker they keep at home is another matter entirely.
What to watch
- Whether Amazon explains clearly when camera access begins and ends for each feature.
- How the planned Fire TV video-call support works in practice.
- Whether useful visual-assistant features persuade customers that a camera belongs in a speaker.
Discussion spark: Would you use a camera-equipped smart speaker for practical visual help, or is keeping a camera in the living room a step too far?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (28 October 2026, 15:26 UTC)
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