Amazon Echo Look is a smart camera with Alexa Assistant that was launched about 2 years ago for $200, and designed to help you decide if your outfit is a good match, beside taking photo and video selfies with voice commands. Sales may not have matched Amazon expectations (unsurprisingly), and the product is now offered for just $49.99.
What may be interesting for CNX Software readers is that Echo Look appears to be a consumer version of AWS DeepLens deep learning video camera for developers ($249), plus some cost savings as well, so there may be some hacking potential here. A teardown video – embedded below – reveals some interesting specifications:
- SoC – Intel Atom x5-Z8350 quad core Cherry Trail processor @ up to 1.44 GHz
- System Memory – 1 GB LPDDR3
- Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, 16 Mbit SPI flash
- Camera – Intel RealSense SR300 depth sensing camera + Amazon’s own camera module
- Audio – Microphone array
- Connectivity – Dual band 802.11ac WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.1 via Broadcom BCM43570 (now known as Cypress CYW43750)
- Texas Instruments PMIC
At $50 the hardware is incredible value, as if you were to buy an Intel Atom x5 stick ($92 shipped) plus an Intel RealSense camera SR300 ($100+ on eBay) separately the total cost would run at around $200.
There remains to be seen if the product is really easily hackable, especially Amazon replaced one of the SR300 camera in Echo Look for whatever reasons, but a good place to get started might be on AWS DeepLens product page with resources for developers.
Thanks to Jon for the tip.

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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