The Amazon Echo Studio is the flagship of Amazon’s redesigned Echo lineup, with a multi-driver audio setup built around Dolby Atmos and spatial audio. It’s also one of the first Echo devices to ship with the new Alexa+ system, which runs on Amazon’s AZ3 chip for faster on-device processing and more natural conversation than older Alexa versions.
You can grab the Amazon Echo Studio for $175 at Amazon right now, down from $220 for a 20% discount.
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The sound is the biggest reason to consider the Echo Studio over the cheaper Echo or Echo Dot Max. Amazon built the Studio around multiple drivers, including a dedicated woofer for bass, a tweeter for highs, and mid-range drivers tuned to fill out everything in between. Spatial audio support gives stereo content extra width, which makes music sound like it’s coming from a full setup instead of a single speaker on a shelf. The Studio also reads the room on first setup and adjusts the sound based on where you’ve put it.
Alexa+ is the built-in assistant on the Echo Studio. It’s a significant departure from the normal Alexa experience we’ve seen on most Echo products over the last few years. Alexa+ supports a more natural form of interaction, allowing you to ask follow-up questions within a single conversational thread and receive simple language responses. Additionally, third-party service integrations like OpenTable and Uber integrate natively with Alexa+, making it easier than ever to reserve a table or book a ride.
Matter, Thread, and Zigbee radios are built into the Studio, which lets it act as a smart home hub for compatible devices. Smart bulbs, plugs, and sensors pair to the speaker through the Alexa app, and Wi-Fi 6E keeps the connection stable as more devices come online. A temperature sensor inside the speaker can also trigger smart home routines, such as turning on a fan once the room hits a set temperature. Touch controls on top of the speaker let you play, pause, and adjust volume without using a voice command.
The Studio is the priciest Echo, so it only really makes sense if you want a speaker that actually sounds good. If you just want Alexa+ and a smart home hub without the audio focus, the Echo Dot Max gets you both for a lot less. Alexa+ is also rolling out in waves, so the new assistant might take a while to reach your speaker even after you set it up.
Most smart speakers do one thing well, with audio quality or assistant ability usually getting more attention than the other. The Echo Studio is one of the few that does both, with the redesigned speaker setup and the new Alexa+ assistant pulling weight in the same unit. Knocking $45 off the $220 list makes the $175 sale even harder to pass on.
