Is Amazon getting ready to give its Alexa voice assistant eyes?

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AFTVNews, which has been quite reliable in the past when it comes to breaking Amazon news, discovered an image on Amazon.com of a device that looks an awful lot like a camera-equipped Echo.

From the image it clearly looks like a device intended for indoor use, and the blue ring around the camera lens is indeed reminiscent of the blue ring on the Echo and Echo Dot.

What could Amazon be hoping to bring to market here? The most obvious answer is a home security device along the lines of the Nest Cam -- and Amazon would be in a good position to offer customers free or cheap cloud storage, something that its competitors charge a premium for.

But other ideas also spring to mind, such as a desktop webcam for an Amazon competitor to Apple's FaceTime or Microsoft's Skype (have you noticed how Amazon hasn't really leveraged the front-facing camera on its tablets much?).

Adding the ability to be able to make audio and video calls to other Echo and Fire users would be quite an interesting move.

Or maybe it's a camera that would allow Amazon customers to point products and barcodes at it to make ordering stuff easier?

But then it could be nothing more than a mockup that Amazon uploaded to its website to mess with us. Or it could be an Amazon camera but have nothing to do with Alexa (although given how Amazon is pushing this technology to all its devices, that doesn't make much sense).

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