Amazon Brings Alexa to Kids in a Colorful New Dot

Kids already love Alexa, the smart assistant from Amazon built into Echo speakers and a handful of other devices. Now the shopping giant has a colorful new version of the popular Echo Dot, called Echo Dot Kids Edition.

Like the Kids Edition of Amazon’s Fire tablets, the new Dot includes a colorful bumper case, a two-year warranty and a one-year subscription to an Amazon service called FreeTime Unlimited.

On Fire tablets, FreeTime Unlimited (usually $2.99/month) gives kids a Netflix-like collection of thousands of ebooks, videos and games. On the Echo Dot, the new kid-friendly version of Alexa will include new games and skills from partners like Disney, National Geographic and Nickelodeon, and a collection of 300-plus audiobooks for kids.

The new Dot also includes some handy features parents will appreciate:

• Parental controls to set time limits, so no chatting with Alexa after lights out
• Automatically filter out music with explicit lyrics
• Voice shopping is turned off by default
• A “Magic Word” setting thanks kids for saying “please” when they talk to Alexa

Aside from the software differences and the bumper case, this is the same Echo Dot hardware Amazon already sells for $49. With the Kids Edition extras, the price jumps to $79.

The Echo Dot Kids Edition is available in blue, green or red and will be released on May 9.