The all new Alexa powered, Amazon Echo Dot is great option to bring the power of your voice to every room in your home. The Amazon Echo has been wildly successful. It is the first free standing personal assistant with voice control. Now with the release of the New Amazon Echo Dot, there is an improved package on the market to expand the reach and accessibility of Alexa in your home.
Who is Alexa? Perhaps your not familiar with the Amazon Echo and the cloud based assistant Alexa. Might I recommend a quick read through the Smarter Home Automation review on the Amazon Echo. You will find a detailed review of its features uses and all the functionality that it brings to the home automation world. In this review, I am going to go through the Amazon Echo Dot, its features and differences that set it apart from the original Amazon Echo, setting it up and using it.
The Amazon Echo Dot, in its second generation is even smaller and sleeker. Amazon offers 2 colors, you may order the echo in black or white. During this review, I used 2 Echo Dots. A white model to match the kitchen decor and a black model to be less visible in the bedroom.
The new Echo Dot is only 1.3″ high, and 3.3″ wide. With a weight of 5.7oz (163 grams) its very small and compact. If you compare that to the Amazon Echo, which comes in at 9.33″ tall and weights in at 37.5oz (1064 grams) its a much smaller package. About one tenth the size.
The Amazon Echo Dot is currently available on Amazons website for $49.99, it is also available for many other tech re-sellers online and in store for the same price. There are currently all kinds of deals to be found on the Amazon website. You can buy 5 and get a 6th Dot free, or buy 12 and get 2 free. Yes, see what they did there. There are also optional warranties you can purchase to extend the coverage of the initial 90 day warranty. I am sure this will be a hit on the next Amazon Prime Day as well as on Black Friday.
There are some differences between the functionality of the Amazon Echo Dot and the original Amazon Echo. The Amazon Echo, has a good sounding speaker system built into its case. Allowing you to stream music straight from your favorite music service to the Amazon Echo.
The Echo Dot, is much, much smaller. It does have a speaker though. You can use the Echo Dot in the same way you use the Amazon Echo. It will play your favorite music using its internal speaker. It doesn’t sound horrible, but as with most Bluetooth speakers of its size the music is very flat.
Amazon has made one great improvement with the Echo Dot. You can pair the Echo Dot with your favorite bluetooth speaker.
The Echo Dot will still use its internal mic system and far-field voice detection to listen for your commands, and will answer you through the paired speaker.
There is also an audio out 3.5mm jack on the Echo Dot. This allows you to connect it to any system with an AUX port and feed the audio directly into your stereo or speaker if it doesn’t support Bluetooth.
The ability to connect your Echo Dot directly to a speaker is a nice improvement. It would be nice if Amazon could add that functionality via upgrade to the Amazon Echo. As its stands now, this feature has changed the placement of my Alexa powered devices around my home.
The Amazon Echo has been moved into the kitchen, and the Echo Dot has taken its place in the living room. As the Echo dot is now connected to the entertainment system, it delivers voice access to all of my favorite music services. There is a lot more detail on supported music services in the Amazon Echo review.
This feature did not come at the expense of being able to pair your phone to the Echo Dot. You can do both! Not at the same time, of course. You can pair your phone and stream all your MP3’s or Itunes music to the Echo Dot via Bluetooth, or you can use Bluetooth to connect the Echo dot to a larger better sounding stereo system. Very welcomed improvement indeed!
Amazon Echo Dot – Setup
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