Amazon’s Dot is Spot on
Amazon’s second generation bid to smarten up your home is well worth a look
SOMETIMES it seems hard to keep track of all the devices Amazon has released with its AI assistant Alexa built in. There are big ones, small ones, ones with screens, ones without screens, tablets, and once even a phone.
But if you want to dip your toe into the future – be that to take a look at what the smart home world might do for you, or find out just what all the fuss is about with Alexa, you might start with this week’s gadgets on test.
We have been living for a couple of weeks with Amazon’s new Echo Dot, and its sister the Echo Spot.
The Dot is the second generation of its kind and features two rather handsome upgrades on its predecessor.
The mini smart speaker has a fancy new look – clad in fabric instead of the first generation’s shiny plastic – and it has new and improved speakers.
One of the problems with the first Dot was that it sounded awful. It was almost as if even Amazon wasn’t expecting you to actually use it as a speaker, but to plug better external speakers into it and listen via them.
You can still do that with the new Dot, but you might not have to. The new speaker is a lot louder, and a lot fuller in the bass department.
Perfectly acceptable for radio (and let’s face it, use as a radio replacement is high on the list of things people do with their Echos).
The new look is also a welcome addition – it speaks of quality and class, and looks a lot more at home in the home than the glossy plastic of old, which rather drew attention to itself.
All is good with the new Dot, then, and at £49.99 a pop, it’s not going to break the bank.
If Amazon’s past behaviour is anything to go by, it’ll regularly have the Dot on sale for around £35, too. You could get one for every room.
Except your bedroom, that is, or your office (if you’re lucky enough to have one). In there you will want the Echo Spot.
The Spot is a Dot with a screen. A tiny screen – which is circular and just 2.5in across. I’m not sure the sound quality is quite on a par, but still – it’s good enough for radio, and for voice and video calling.
That’s right, the Spot (£119.99) also has a front-facing camera, so you can video chat with anyone else who has one, or who has an Echo Show (the big brother with a 10in screen). It works with the Alexa smartphone app, too.
The screen works pretty well for video calling, but you obviously wouldn’t want to watch anything of any length on it.
You can, though, watch news bulletins, and YouTube videos, and it’s surprisingly usable for both those things.
The circular shape makes it perfect for displaying clock faces, and this is more or less the Spot’s default look – and it dims perfectly at night, so makes for a great bedside companion. You can set alarms for it, obviously, and can wake up to almost any sound source Alexa is capable of finding – and there are plenty of options, from the BBC, to TuneIn to Spotify, it’s all there.
It’ll also show you the weather, news updates, and your calendar and reminders.
The big question is, do you buy into Amazon’s eco system? Google and, to a significantly lesser extent, Apple, are also heading down this road. And while Google is catching up fast, and in the market with a host of compelling devices, Amazon is certainly still out in front.
These devices are great – they look good, sound good, and are truly useful.
Alexa is, at this point, the pick of the AI assistants, too, which makes these devices even more attractive.
At the moment Amazon is selling the Dot and Spot in various bundles with Phillips Hue smart lighting bulbs, and its own smart plug. It’s an ideal way to test the smart home waters. You’ll never want to go back.