Amazon's new Echo Dot costs $99.99 with a built-in smart home hub, and Echo Studio gets a $249.99 camera model

Amazon announced a new Echo Dot at $99.99 and an Echo Studio with Home Camera at $249.99 on October 28, 2026, and said both were available that day. The $219.99 Echo Studio it launched in 2025 stays in the lineup. The headline change on the Dot is a smart home hub, which Amazon calls a first for Echo Dot, though its separate Echo Dot Max already lists one. The price is the other story: the Echo Dot that Amazon introduced in September 2022 cost $49.99 when it launched.

What the new Echo Dot adds

With Zigbee, Matter and Thread on board, the Dot can run compatible lights, locks and thermostats without a separate hub, according to Amazon. Our Matter guide explains what those labels do and do not promise. The speaker also carries an eero Wi-Fi extender rated at up to 1,000 square feet. Amazon's two posts word that differently: the lineup post says it extends “your existing network”, while the detailed post says “your existing eero network”. The second wording suggests it depends on eero equipment. Neither post settles the point, but Amazon's store page for the Echo Dot Max, which has a similar 1,000-square-foot extender, says the network must use a compatible eero router.

Inside are Amazon's AZ3 chip, a fourth microphone and its Omnisense sensors, which the company says can pick up room temperature and whether someone is present. For sound, Amazon describes a full-range driver set into the housing and claims 50% more bass than the previous Dot. That number is Amazon's own, and we have not measured it. The Dot comes in Graphite, Glacier White, Agave Green and Coral Pink. Two Amazon Kids versions start at $109.99 with a year of Kids+, and an optional stand costs $39.99.

A second Echo Dot with the same launch price

Buyers may also come across the Echo Dot Max, which Amazon launched at $99.99 in 2025 and describes as a two-way system with a woofer and a tweeter. So the “first” Amazon claims covers only the standard Dot: the Max's store page lists a built-in hub with Zigbee, Matter and Thread, and claims nearly twice the bass of the 2026 Dot. Amazon's October posts do not mention the Max, so they do not settle whether it stays on sale at that price. Amazon's store menu still listed it on November 6, but the pages we could open were set to deliver to another country and showed no price.

Echo Studio, with or without a camera

The camera model keeps the speaker layout Amazon gave Echo Studio in 2025: a high-excursion woofer and three full-range drivers, with Dolby Atmos. Amazon's description of the new model adds Advanced Room Adaptation and Adaptive Volume, and its posts do not say whether those reach the $219.99 version.

What the extra $30 clearly buys is the camera. Through Live View in the Alexa app, an owner can look in on the room from elsewhere, and Alexa+ can identify things held up to the lens; Amazon's examples are a board game box and a cereal box. Video calls through a compatible Fire TV are promised “soon”, with no date. On privacy, Amazon says a dedicated button cuts the microphones and any cameras, and an LED lights while the camera model streams to the cloud. It presents the $219.99 model as the choice for people who want no camera.

How the prices compare

These are prices, not a verdict on sound. Our report on HomePod mini 2 sets out in more detail what Apple's speaker depends on.

What Amazon's October posts do not say

• When Fire TV video calling will reach Echo Studio with Home Camera.
• Whether Echo Dot Max stays on sale alongside the new Dot.
• Whether Advanced Room Adaptation and Adaptive Volume come to the $219.99 Echo Studio.