Amazon‘s two new kinds of hardware are built to look like things people already own: a picture frame for the shelf and an alarm clock for the nightstand. Neither sells itself on the screen or the speaker. Both sell themselves on Alexa+, the assistant that chooses which of your photos deserve the wall and decides when you are in light enough sleep to be woken.

Most of the launch coverage ran the roundup: the frame as Amazon’s answer to Aura, the clock as its answer to Hatch, prices lined up beside a new Echo Show and Echo Dot. The price tags leave out the system underneath. The features that make these devices more than a frame and a clock depend on a subscription that Prime members already pay for and everyone else does not, and on a photo library that has to live with Amazon.

Alexa Photo Frame: what you pay and what does the work

The Alexa Photo Frame costs $199.99 in black and $229 in real birch or walnut. Its 10-inch touchscreen has a semi-matte, anti-glare finish meant to read as a print rather than a display, and in an early hands-on Gizmodo found it hard, at first glance, to tell apart from framed photographs placed next to it. A light sensor shifts the brightness from day to night.

The curation is the product. Amazon says Alexa+ “intelligently picks the best pictures to show based on faces, time, and sentiment,” favouring shots where you are smiling and the lighting is right, matching the season, and skipping “screenshots and receipts.” You can name the people to feature so new photos of them arrive on their own, ask out loud for photos of the kids, attach a recorded voice note to a picture, or long-press one and hide it.

All of that reads from one place. The frame syncs from Amazon Photos, where Prime includes unlimited full-resolution storage, and friends and family can send pictures straight to it. Amazon’s announcement names no other photo service. For a household whose last ten years of pictures sit somewhere else, the frame is also a request to move them.

The Alexa+ catch, in numbers

Amazon’s own pages say certain features require Alexa+, which is included with Prime, without listing which ones. Without Prime, Alexa+ costs $20 a month, as Engadget noted. Every Alexa Photo Frame comes with ninety days of it. For a Prime household, none of this changes anything.

The picture changes for the buyer Amazon itself pitches to: the frame bought as a gift so that Grandma sees the grandchildren’s newest photos without anyone sending them. If the account behind the frame has no Prime membership, the curation that justified the price comes with a three-month clock, and keeping it at the monthly rate costs more each year than the frame did.

Echo Time drops the camera, not the sensors

Echo Time costs $199.99 in Graphite, Glacier White or Coral Pink. A matching adjustable stand is $39.99, or $239.98 bundled with the clock. The Kids version starts at $209.99 with a year of Kids+ included, in Galactic Grape and Cosmic Lime. The spherical body carries a 3.2-inch round touchscreen, hundreds of clock faces including Harry Potter and Batman designs, and a display that brightens like a sunrise before the alarm and dims at night with less blue light.

Amazon makes a point of the missing camera, and that is accurate as far as it goes. The smart alarm, which wakes you in lighter sleep at some point in the 10 to 60 minutes before the time you set, runs on what Amazon calls Omnisense: temperature sensors and presence detection learn your routine, while ultrasound detects breathing and proximity, no wearable needed. Camera-free does not mean the bedroom goes unmeasured. Sleep sensing is opt-in and can be switched off in the Alexa app or with the microphone mute button. Gadget Review’s caution fits: this is a wellness convenience, not a medical-grade sleep measurement.

The rest of the lineup, and where prices moved

The redesigned Echo Dot is $99.99 and now carries a smart home hub, an eero Wi-Fi extender Amazon rates at up to 1,000 square feet, and its AZ3 chip. TechBooky points out that the earlier Dot was reported at $79.99 in September, on different hardware. The Echo Studio with Home Camera is $249.99, while the camera-free Studio stays at $219.99. The Echo Show 16 is on preorder at $499.99, or $569.99 with the anti-glare Nanomatte screen, with $100 off for preorders; Amazon says it ships later this year, and Android Authority puts that in the second half of December.

Amazon lists the frame and Echo Time as available now, though Android Authority reported early shipping estimates for the frame pointing to the following week. Every price in Amazon’s announcements is in US dollars, and TechBooky notes that local prices and launch dates elsewhere may differ.

Amazon has put a $199.99 frame on the shelf and a $199.99 clock by the bed. Without Prime, the frame’s photo curator works free for ninety days, and after that it becomes a subscription.

Tags: amazon, Alexa Photo Frame, Alexa+, Echo Time, smart home devices