Amazon's new Echo Dot costs $99.99, double the old model's $49.99
Amazon unveiled five new Alexa devices on Wednesday, led by a $99.99 Echo Dot that adds a smart home hub and Wi-Fi extender and a $499.99 Echo Show 16. The prices land two months after Amazon raised the older Echo Dot from $49.99 to $79.99, citing memory chip costs driven partly by AI data center demand.
AI-assisted · US Brief desk · Sources listed below
What happened
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled five new Alexa devices, and the cheapest of them shows how far its prices have moved this year. The new Echo Dot ships today for $99.99, the Echo Studio with Home Camera for $249.99, the Echo Time bedside clock for $199.99, and the Alexa Photo Frame from $199.99, according to Amazon and Reuters. The redesigned Echo Show 16 smart display is up for preorder at $499.99, or $569.99 with an anti-glare Nanomatte screen, with $100 off for preorders.
Amazon says the new Echo Dot is its most capable yet. For the first time it has a built-in smart home hub that can run lights, locks and thermostats without a separate box, plus a built-in eero Wi-Fi extender that Amazon says adds up to 1,000 square feet of coverage. It also gets Amazon's AZ3 chip and, Amazon says, 50% more bass. Kids versions cost $109.99 with a year of Amazon Kids+.
The price path, step by step: the fifth-generation Echo Dot sold for $49.99 until August, when Amazon raised it to $79.99, a 60% jump, as first reported by Fortune. The new model is $99.99, twice the old $49.99 price, though it adds the hub and Wi-Fi extender. In August Amazon also raised the Echo Show 21 from $399.99 to $499.99, the Echo Show 15 from $299.99 to $349.99, the base Kindle from $109.99 to $149.99 and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max from $59.99 to $84.99, per The Verge. Amazon has not said whether the $79.99 Dot stays on sale.
Why it matters
Amazon has long sold cheap Echo speakers to pull people into Alexa, Prime and shopping. A $99.99 entry speaker means that strategy now costs buyers more, and the same memory squeeze has pushed up prices for Macs, game consoles and phones. Shoppers with a working Echo have no technical reason to replace it; certain new Alexa features require Alexa+, which Amazon includes with Prime.
More context
Amazon blamed the August increases on parts. "The consumer electronics industry is facing significant increases in memory and storage component costs," Amazon said in a statement, adding that it absorbed the increases "for as long as we could." Memory makers have shifted capacity toward chips for AI data centers; on Wednesday SK Hynix said its memory is effectively sold out through 2029.
Business Insider reported Tuesday that an internal Amazon document forecasts a $612 million gross loss for its own devices business this year, against a leadership target of a $438 million loss, and says memory costs forced "difficult trade-offs" among sales volume, prices and profit. Amazon declined to comment to Business Insider, and US Brief could not independently confirm the document.
What's still unknown: whether Amazon keeps the older, cheaper Echo Dot on sale, whether holiday discounts bring the new prices down, and whether Amazon raises prices again if memory costs keep climbing.
6 listed sources
- www.aboutamazon.com
- www.channelnewsasia.com
- www.theverge.com
- www.theverge.com
- fortune.com
- www.businessinsider.com
References listed by US Brief; a source count is not a verification score.
Editorial sourcing notes
Device prices and features are from Amazon's Oct. 28 announcement, confirmed by Reuters (via CNA) and The Verge. The August price changes are from Fortune and The Verge, and Amazon confirmed them in a statement. The $612 million devices loss forecast comes from an internal Amazon document that only Business Insider has reported; Amazon declined to comment on it. Amazon has not said whether the older $79.99 Echo Dot will stay on sale.
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