The Echo Dot is compact and doesn't take up much room. Sound quality is good for such a small unit. Easy to setup.

I have met the future and her name is Alexa. Most of us know Amazon for their great Amazon Prime shopping feature. I mean who doesn’t love free two-day shipping. However, today I’ll be talking about Amazon’s foray into the future of voice activated technology. The Amazon Echo Dot. Specifically the second generation model. Due to the success of the first model and competition from Google Home, Amazon introduced the second – gen Amazon Echo Dot back in October of 2016. What is the Echo Dot? Simply, it’s a hands-free, voice-activated small device with a built – in speaker. Dot can do all kinds of cool things, it can play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather and more – instantly. In the Box: Packaging for the Dot is as simple as the device itself. Inside you get the Dot, a power adapter (9watt), a USB charging cable and basic instructions for setting up your new Echo Dot. Setup for the Dot couldn’t be easier. Just download the free Alexa app which is available for Fire OS, Android, IOS and desktop browsers. Once that’s done, open the app and follow the instructions to connect Dot to your Wifi network. Now you’re ready to say hello to Alexa. Alexa is actually one of four “wake” words you can use to activate your Dot. You can also use Echo, Amazon, or if you’re a Trekkie you can now use your computer. A friend of mine actually had to use a different wake word because they have a daughter named Alexa, which you can imagine caused some interesting problems. Speaking of kids, they will also love Alexa. I have two young nephews and when they come over they love asking Alexa questions or have her tell them corny jokes. Like most young kids they love Sponge Bob and got a real kick when they asked Alexa “who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” And she responded “Sponge Bob Squarepants.”

My mom has the full-sized echo but she has a 3BR 2-story house and I live in a 1BR apartment, so I went with the Dot. I love it so far! It was easy to set up, I did so as soon as I got home. I set it to recognize my voice and I use it to play music on spotify or pandora, and to control the lights (smart plugs) in my bedroom and living room. It is very responsive, easy to use, and takes up no space at all! Good sound quality for such a little device. Adds the perfect touch of modern elegance to my living room.

This is super cool product with very cheap price. I use it every day to listen to music, wheather forecast, news, radio, etc. I love this tiny friend Alexa so much.

I got this Amazing echo dot gen 2 on sale for $30 right before gen 3 was released. I already knew about the new echo dot when I bought this but wanted to save some money. I haven’t listened to the newer dot to compare the two. The built in speaker is not very loud for music and is really only good to hear Alexa assistant or talking in general. This is great however that it allows you to pair this with any Bluetooth speaker to send the audio to much better speakers. I am also using this with the 3.5 mm line out cable to hook this to my non Bluetooth Sony alarm clock that is way too old to have built in Bluetooth. I really like being able to send audio via Bluetooth to my sony sound bar by voice command! Google cast with that same sound bar is very cool also. I also have the Insignia smart portable google Home speaker that goes on sale for very cheap prices all the time! I like the Insignia speaker better even though it doesn’t have a 3.5 mm line out jack and is not as versatile in working with any Bluetooth speakers as far as I can tell so far. The google assistant seems to answer my questions more often than Alexa. Also google assistant is much more chatty in general than Alexa. Kind of like a digital friend than a cold robotic assistant. For the price I paid though I think this is a good assistant to add to your smart home along side google.