Amazon’s next-gen Echo and Kindle devices are almost here

Get ready for a parade of new Amazon devices—including Echo speakers powered by the new AI Alexa—at showcase in New York City later this month. 

The event is slated for September 30, and the timing puts Amazon back on track for its usual fall preview of its latest wares. Amazon skipped its typical fall event last year in favor of a smaller Kindle-only unveiling. 

The Amazon invitation shows what appears to be Alexa’s telltale blue light ring, along with the famous Kindle logo, so it seems like new Echo devices and Kindle tablets are safe bets. 

The upcoming event will mark the first full-on Amazon Devices fall showcase since the arrival of Alexa+, the AI-supercharged version of Alexa. Alexa+ made its splashy debut back in February following a lengthy delay, and it’s been rolling out ever so slowly over the past several months. 

Amazon’s big fall hardware event will also be the first to feature Panos Panay, the former Microsoft executive who took over Amazon’s Alexa and Echo divisions. Panay, who succeed outgoing Amazon exec David Limp back in September 2023, hosted a scaled-down Kindle event last fall, as well as the Alexa+ reveal earlier this year. 

Several of Amazon’s most popular Echo devices are due for a refresh, including the ever-popular Echo Dot. The fifth-generation Echo Dot made its debut back in 2022, most notably with the new ability to act as an extender for Amazon’s Eero mesh Wi-Fi routers. 

The four-year-old Amazon Echo Show 10 with its swiveling display is also ripe for a re-do, as is the Echo Studio, the Dolby Atmos-capable Echo speaker that came out way back in 2020. The Echo Studio has long been unavailable for purchase, and no Echo speaker with similar audio quality has come along to replace it. 

Besides Echo speaker and displays, Amazon will likely unveil new Kindle hardware at the event. Ring cameras are also stables of Amazon’s fall event, including (somewhat infamously) the Always Home Cam, the flying Ring drone camera that never made it out of its early-access status. 

Amazon’s fall event will come just a day before Google shows off the latest Google Home devices, including (very probably) new Nest cams and a new smart speaker powered by Gemini.