One Echo to rule them all

Alexa’s new home looks like a football but she’s never been more powerful

Amazon Echo 4th Gen

From €122

See amazon.co.uk/echo ★★★★★

Digital assistants are part of our life now. Apple, Microsoft and Google have their well-known versions, and phone makers Samsung and Huawei have introduced us to Bixby and Celia.

The best known assistant however, is Amazon’s Alexa, who lives in the Echo range of smart devices. Initially, Amazon’s devices were small black boxes designed to sit around your home and provide audio responses to your questions and help you manage smart-home devices like lights and plugs, using just your voice.

However, today you can also speak to Alexa via headphones as you run, and she’ll turn the kettle or the hot water on for you before you get back home. You can speak to Alexa via devices made by Sonos, Bose and others and Amazon even make glasses, the Amazon Frames, with Alexa magically built in.

For me though, Alexa is most powerful and useful when placed at the heart of the home, the livingroom and the latest Alexa device designed for this is the Amazon Echo, 4th Generation.

Unpacking the Echo reveals its radically new design.

Gone is the tubular box shape – the Echo is now essentially shaped like a child’s small football at 144mm across.

It’s also surprisingly weighty, and weighs in at 970g, presumably this accounts for the upgraded speaker system inside.

Inlaid on the top of the Echo are four buttons. These are volume up and down, and an action button for manually handling some tasks if you prefer. Also there is a mic off button, which lets you manually switch of the microphone if you’re concerned about privacy.

Also on the body is a 3.5mm socket, allowing you to connect Alexa to an existing hi-fi set-up, for instance.

After connecting the power adapter you need to open the Alexa app for Android or iOS to configure the Echo.

If you have an existing Alexa setup, when you order from Amazon you can have the device pre-configured for your home. While this is really convenient, setting up the Echo for the first time is intuitive, and the app guides you through setup and connection to your home broadband, in what should be a five-minute process.

If you have smart-home devices like a Nest thermostat, Belkin plugs or Philips Hue lights, you can simply ask Alexa to discover new devices. They will then be added to your set-up and will be controllable by voice.

If you are new to the smart-home world, Alexa will initially be useful as a music centre and digital assistant. The sound on this new Alexa device is a significant improvement on the previous Echo model.

I had previously connected my old Echo to my hi-fi, and while this version can also do that, it has enough punch and clarity to be a stand-alone device for casual music or radio listening.

The two tweeters and punchy 3” bass woofer do an excellent job with most types of music, with sharp pop being the only genre that tests the tweeter response.

If you have a subscription to Amazon Music or Spotify, you can simply ask Alexa to play artists, playlists or specific tracks.

However, if you haven’t signed up for streaming service yet, the built-in TuneIn Radio app is excellent.

For instance, you can ask Alexa to ‘Play music for dinner’, and in my case she connected to a French smooth jazz station, complete with short French language ads that just added to the atmosphere.

This is so convenient and the audio so good, that I now don’t use my hi-fi or TV for listening to the radio anymore.

The smaller and cheaper sibling of this Echo has a lovely built-in glowing clock, and that is perhaps the only bugbear I have about this new Echo.

The smart-home functionality of this device has been enhanced, and it now houses Zigbee compatibility. This opens up connectivity to everything from robotic lawnmowers to automatic window blinds, and this is a true one-stop-shop for home automation.

With improved audio and the additional home-hub capability Amazon has done it again.

It’s a discreet device, small in stature but the power of Alexa inside makes this Amazon’s best value and most useful Echo yet.

STOPPED USING MY HI-FI FOR LISTENING TO THE RADIO