Amazon announces a new Echo Studio

Amazon revealed a new Echo Studio smart speaker at its fall 2025 hardware event on Tuesday. A new speaker wasn’t a total surprise, as Amazon’s event invite hinted strongly that there might be new Echo devices revealed at the show. The Studio is the “most advanced and best-sounding Echo ever,” Amazon’s VP of Alexa and Echo, Daniel Rausch, said at Amazon’s launch event. It has three full-range drivers, a custom woofer, and is designed for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. Amazon has also moved the light ring around to the front. The speaker is also 40 percent smaller than the original model. This new Studio is powered by Amazon’s AZ3 Pro chip. The AZ3 line has improved conversation detection, and the Pro version adds support for “state-of-the-art language models and vision transformers.” And Amazon will let you connect up to five Studio or Echo Dot Max speakers with “compatible” Fire TV streaming sticks to create a surround sound system, a feature Amazon calls “Alexa Home Theater.” Amazon says the new Echo Studio will cost $219.99. It is available for preorder today and will ship on October 29th. In the US, it will also come with early access to Alexa Plus, Amazon’s AI-powered upgrade to Alexa. Amazon initially announced the Echo Studio in 2019. My former colleague Dan Seifert wrote in his review of the speaker that “the new Echo Studio is not only the best-sounding Echo speaker ever made, it is perhaps the best-sounding smart speaker I’ve tested, regardless of brand, manufacturer, or even price.” In 2022, Amazon improved the speaker’s sound and spatial audio processing technology with a software update and introduced a white model in addition to the already available black. The introduction of this new Echo speaker follows Panos Panay taking over Amazon’s devices and services team in 2023 from Dave Limp. Panay previously served as Microsoft’s chief product officer.