Amazon’s September 2025 hardware event: all the news and announcements – The Verge

Here’s where to preorder all of Amazon’s new Alexa devices and when they arrive

2025-09-30T20:15:13-04:00

Amazon's fall hardware event had a little of everything: updated Echo speakers, several Blink security devices, and even a Kindle Scribe with a color screen. Most of the gadgets won't ship for at least a couple of weeks, if not longer; however, most are also available for preorder at Amazon if you want to be among the first to try them.

To help make sense of it all, we've rounded up all of Amazon's upcoming wares, along with quick summaries and preorder details for each device. And if you're waiting for our thoughts, stay tuned: we'll be reviewing many of the new devices in the coming weeks, including the latest Fire TVs, Echo devices, and …

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Alexa Plus is available out of the box on new Echo devices

2025-09-30T17:00:21-04:00

Alexa Plus adds agentic capabilities and AI smarts to Amazon’s virtual assistant. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon's AI-powered Alexa is on its way to more homes soon. The upgraded assistant will be available straight out of the box with new hardware announced today. New Echo devices will come with Alexa Plus right out of the box; it'll also be available to those who buy one of the new Fire TVs. Alexa Plus is still an early access program and only available in the US, but including it on the new hardware marks an important step forward for Amazon's overdue assistant overhaul.

Alexa Plus hasn't had an easy journey to get here. Amazon initially announced an LLM-embued Alexa update two years ago under former hardware exec Dave Limp. The project was …

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Amazon’s 2025 hardware event: the 8 biggest announcements

2025-09-30T17:08:17-04:00

Amazon just finished up its fall event, where it shared big updates across its entire hardware lineup. In addition to revealing new Echo hardware and Kindle Scribe upgrades, Amazon also took the wraps off refreshed Fire TV devices and a whole bunch more.

Here are all the announcements Amazon made during the event.

Amazon revamps the Echo Show 8 and 11

Amazon debuted its latest Echo Show smart displays, with both the 8-inch and 11-inch models featuring a new design that places a slimmer screen atop an oblong speaker wrapped in knit fabric. Both displays have 13-megapixel cameras with a wide-angle view to better detect people in the room, a …

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Alexa Plus on the TV is made to save you from your phone

2025-09-30T12:50:37-04:00

Alexa Plus is coming to a bunch of Amazon's new and current Fire TV hardware. Just like before, you can summon the new, improved version of Alexa with your voice, but it's designed to be much more helpful and better at fetching context-sensitive information about things happening onscreen that you might normally reach for your phone to find.

The company shared some ways in which Alexa Plus supercharges its X-Ray feature that tells you more about the content you're watching on Prime Video. It can tell you about an actor's background, tell you where a TV series was filmed, or school you on related trivia, all while you're watching along. One …

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Hands-on with Amazon’s new Kindle Scribes, including one with a color screen

2025-09-30T16:35:42-04:00

Color comes to the big Kindles.

Amazon announced three new Kindle Scribes this morning with a much nicer design. There's even one with a color screen. I had a chance to check them out ahead of Amazon's press event, and I have some thoughts.

This marks the third generation of the company's larger 11-inch e-readers aimed at professionals, students, and people who just want… a big screen for magazines, books, or to jot notes on. The addition of a color display is one highlight, but these Scribes are also super light (14.1oz) and thin. At 5.4mm, they're thinner than the iPhone Air and come with new AI features that will help users quickly summarize notes. I dig the new look w …

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Amazon finally did the damn hardware right

2025-09-30T13:57:23-04:00

The new Echo Show 11 smart display in white. This is one of the first devices to ship with Alexa Plus, Amazon’s new generative AI assistant, ready to go out of the box.

Amazon's newest Echo speakers look gorgeous. Thin bezels, bright, responsive touchscreens, 3D knit fabric-wrapped speakers with controls front and center, and most importantly, powerful hardware to help make the smart home sing. It's almost everything I've ever asked for from my smart speakers and displays.

A lack of premium hardware - or any clear strategy around smart home devices - has long been an issue for Amazon. While practically giving Echo devices away has resulted in an impressive penetration for its Alexa voice assistant, they're not devices people treasure. They don't get much respect. These new Echo speakers look set to flip th …

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Amazon’s new Echo Dot Max smart speaker bumps up the bass

2025-09-30T12:54:46-04:00

The Echo Dot Max has a flatter face with relocated control buttons.

Amazon took the wraps off its latest Echo Dot smart speaker during its fall hardware event on Tuesday. The Echo Dot Max is a new entry that updates the recognizable spherical design with a flat face housing the speaker's control buttons and LED light ring.

At $99.99, the Echo Dot Max is the same price as Apple's HomePod Mini and costs twice as much as the fifth-generation Echo Dot. Amazon says the sound system has been redesigned to provide nearly three times more bass than its predecessor. Unveiled today alongside the new Echo Studio, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 11, Amazon says that these are "the most powerful Echo devices we have ever cre …

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Amazon debuts its latest Fire TVs, including a new Omni QLED model

2025-09-30T12:37:25-04:00

At Amazon's annual hardware event, it announced a fleet of new Fire TVs, including an Omni QLED model, as well as new 2- and 4-series televisions that are all available to preorder starting today and will ship next month. These TVs feature what the company calls omnisense presence detection. It will allow the TV to wake up when it detects that you walk into the room. You can also talk to Alexa Plus through the TV - no remote needed.

Alexa Plus is a smarter experience for the big screen than the previous iteration. Amazon claims it can give you suggestions tailored to your taste, even finding specific scenes within movies based on your query …

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Amazon announces new Echo Show 8 and 11 smart displays

2025-09-30T12:46:19-04:00

The Echo Show 11 is the larger of Amazon’s two new smart displays.

Amazon debuted the new Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 during its fall 2025 hardware event on Tuesday, after heavily relying on previous versions of the smart display to demonstrate upgrades coming to its Alexa smart assistant at an event earlier this year.

The Echo Show 8 is a new version of one of Amazon's smaller smart displays, last updated in 2023. As the name suggests, it includes an 8-inch display and 720p resolution. It's an LCD display, but apparently an improved one, with wider viewing angles and higher contrast than older Show hardware.

There has not been an Echo Show 11 before, but it feels like a follow-up to the Echo Show 10, wh …

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Amazon announces a new Echo Studio

2025-09-30T13:17:49-04:00

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. …

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