Amazon Echo Input
This handy little puck is an affordable way to bring Amazon’s Alexa assistant to your existing hi-fi equipment
Home automation used to be one of tech's money pits. Now, thanks in part to Amazon's Echo smart speakers, it's one of the most lucrative and growing areas of domestic electronics. The real cost is your privacy, of course, but as this is eroded with every Google search or Facebook post made, you might as well appreciate a bargain when it appears.
Amazon's Echo Input is effectively an Echo Dot without the speaker, letting you try out digital living via a smart assistant for less money. It's an 8cm disc of black or white plastic, designed to be ignored rather than noticed. There's no ring of LED lights around its edges to let you know Alexa is listening, and no grey fabric on its sides to make it seem prepped for an Ikea-style living room.
Wake-up call
The Echo Input recreates almost every smart feature and function of its bigger, more expensive siblings. An LED dot on the top lights up when Alexa is enabled, and two buttons let you mute the mic and stir Alexa without a wake word.
There are no volume controls on the Echo Input, but as it needs to be connected to a powered speaker to function, this makes sense. A Bluetooth speaker is the most likely pairing, and the Input connects to one much like a phone. This is done through the Alexa app, which is a stand-in for the visual interface an Input lacks. Amazon hasn’t revealed much about the Bluetooth tech used beyond ‘A2DP’, but clearly aptx and aptx HD aren't here. However, when the Echo Input is connected to the sort of sub-£200 wireless speakers that would seem a natural fit, there's no obvious drop in sound quality.
Using Bluetooth also lets you place the Echo Input on the other side of the room from the speaker, which is actually a good idea anyway. Amazon Echo smart speakers are good at hearing voice commands when music is playing, but the Input compensates for this only to a degree, because it doesn't know the tonal signature or volume of your speaker.
But the Echo Input has the same quad far-field mic array as the Echo Dot, so it should pick up your voice, even from the other side of a reasonably large room. As it separates mics from speakers, you also have greater freedom to position Alexa's ‘ears’ wherever you like.
Quality control
The Echo Input has a 3.5mm output, so you can plug it into an AV receiver or traditional hi-fi via the included cable. This puts responsibility for sound quality onto the Input's DAC. Amazon hasn't published details of the chip used, but other than a slightly low volume output, we have no complaints about audio quality. There are no digital outputs for the true hi-fi fan, but the Amazon Echo system isn't really geared up for high-end audio streaming anyway.
Alexa behaves just as she does through a more expensive Echo Plus, but the main practical considerations relate to the speaker to which the Echo Input is connected – issues such as will it go into standby if not used for a little while, and whether your speaker’s standby mode is efficient enough to avoid consuming too much energy when waiting for music.
The Input has no control over these aspects, of course, but they are worth considering if you're expecting the Echo Input experience to be as seamless as that of a standalone Amazon Echo.
The Echo Input is not a technological revelation, it’s simply an Echo Dot without the speaker capabilities. But, crucially, Amazon has maintained the quality of the Echo experience here.
Of course, the main benefit over other Amazon products is that you can use the Input with virtually any powered speaker set-up, including your existing kit. That makes it an attractive prospect and the most affordable way to try out Alexa in your existing set-up.