Amazon turns its most capable smart speaker into a smart camera, too
Since debuting in 2019, Amazon’s Echo Studio targeted users who wanted superior audio quality from their Alexa-based smart speaker. The latest Echo Studio adds another less-expected differentiator: an integrated camera.
The Echo Studio with Home Camera, released alongside a pile of other Alexa devices today, doesn’t have many audio upgrades over the standard Echo Studio. Each speaker has one 3.75-inch high-excursion woofer and three full-range drivers. They both support Dolby Atmos and Amazon’s proprietary algorithm for adding a surround sound-like effect to stereo audio. Per the devices’ product pages, the speakers have lossless HD audio, Advanced Room Adaptation, and features for fighting noise distortion. Amazon announced the Advanced Room Adaptaion today, saying that the feature “continuously tunes the sound to your space, automatically adapting to the room’s acoustics.”
Both speakers have four-microphone arrays and the same AZ3 Pro processor that Amazon introduced a year ago. The processor has an AI accelerator for using Amazon’s Alexa+ generative AI chatbot.
