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Amazon’s new Echo Studio has an all-seeing AI camera – and unanswered privacy questions
It’s unclear when or how the Echo Studio with Home Camera starts analyzing your room - or whether you’ll need to opt in first.
Amazon’s new Echo Studio with Home Camera does exactly what it sounds like: adds a camera to the premium smart speaker for home monitoring, visual assistance, and video calls. It’s available now for $250 and is another attempt by Amazon to see into more homes.
Amazon on Wednesday announced the Echo Studio with Home Camera alongside its standard and kid-friendly Echo Dot.
The camera serves as a security camera when you’re away and an all-seeing assistant while you’re in the room. Amazon said it gives Alexa+ “visual intelligence” to be able to see and do more. For example, the Echo Studio can explain the rules of a board game when it appears in the Studio’s view or help you order more of a product when you show it to the camera. It could help you buy more stuff from Amazon — how convenient.
Also: The Amazon Echo Dot Max is $30 off: Should you upgrade?
Later this year, Echo Studios and Amazon Fire TVs will gain compatibility, so you can use the Echo Studio’s camera to initiate video calls that cast on the TV.
The Echo Studio arrives with advanced room adaptation that melds sound to a space and to you — it gathers your distance from the speaker to lower or raise the volume as you move around, so you can hear the music at your desired volume regardless of your distance from the device.
The new speakers are powered by Amazon’s AZ3 silicon chip, which helps Alexa pick up conversations more quickly and cuts background noise. Its on-device processing helps your conversations with Amazon’s robot sound a little less robotic.
Amazon’s Omnisense technology monitors a room’s conditions to adapt the room temperature and lighting. This will come in handy now that Amazon has made the Dot into a smart home hub of its own that can control other compatible devices around the home. This renders the Amazon Echo nearly obsolete as a standalone smart home hub.
Tech companies keep releasing products with always-on recording and listening capabilities, to the discomfort of many users and privacy advocates.