Amazon - Echo (2nd Gen) - Smart Speaker with Alexa - Heather Gray Fabric

I have made home automation a hobby of mine as I find the whole process fascinating. That said I have a relatively large setup in my home, including lighting, home security, streaming devices, connected tv/harmony from logitech and other devices as well. The question was Amazon Echo, or Google Home to control everything with my voice. So first just to get the basics out of the way - I give them both 4/5 stars, either one will do you right, they both are great devices and I look forward to see them develop further over time. Also they both have a nice speaker for playing music, and good microphone. If you are picking one for just music purposes, it is going to be based upon Prime vs Google Music so to each their own. That said their are certain features to each device that may push you in one direction or the other. Here is my simple pro/con break down of both. Google Home Pros: Highly customizable -It's Mobile app is great and full of features for you to configure. -This is the big one -- you can program shortcuts! One of the hardest parts of using this, is making it user friendly. You have to say specific commands for the device to know what home automation process you are trying to kick off , for example, "Hey Google, tell my harmony to turn on the tv" What a mouthful. My family found ourselves sometimes struggling to remember the EXACT command to say to turn things on or off or mute. Especially as you add more devices to it. With Google, you can create short cuts in the phone app - essentially you can Map a command to something you would say naturally. So Hey Google Mute can be mapped to Hey Google tell harmony to mute the living room tv. If you take the time to set all of this up it makes it a highly usable device. I have several Shortcuts for each command to help ensure that speaking naturally to the device will allow it to perform the correct action -You can program it to recognize different peoples voices - so if you do not want the kids to be able to mess with it, or you have different short cuts for different people, it can be a neat feature Google Voice -- you can use it to call people, Hey Google call - and a number or contact and boom. As long as its domestic it is free. Ive used it to find my lost phone as well as place a call while I was working in the kitchen and my hands were tied up. If you use gmail/google Calendar, it can integrate into your calendar - ( this is one area where the voice recognition is nice, if more than one in the house hold is using it with their calendar) Cons: The lights on the top are a lot harder to see than the Echo ring. Sometimes I have had to repeat myself because it didn't catch my hey google and I wasn't aware until 3 seconds of akward silence. That highly customizable pro? Can also be a con - it can be customized so much, it leads to occasional buggines, or confusion It does not integrate to as many things , or have as many skills as the Echo, for me this has not been an issue, but Amazon seems to be ahead of the curve on playing well with others. *If you have Youtube TV for you cord cutters out their - with the correct device, the Google Home works GREAT at navigating live TV -- Hey google put on ESPN, Hey Google, put on CBS - My kids love it because they can put on the cartoon network and not need to figure out the remote. I love it just beacuse its cool. Amazon Echo Pros: -Easy to Use and to setup- the skills are easy to setup, the app is really straight forward. You do not need to be a tech savy person to do most of the basics on the Echo. -Ring on top lights up nice and bright when Alexa hears you. - Reponses to questions are much more natural and feel warmer from the Echo, The Google Home tends to ramble on and tell you non sense you didnt care about -Lots of extra devices that can all work together - We have the Spot in our bedroom as an alarm clock, it also can act as an intercom -It integrates with Skills to SO many products , you can have a security camera feed brought up on your Fire TV , or Show if you have one, really cool stuff Cons - -Not customizable for triggers -- You need to know what to say, and how to say it. Thats easy when its the simple stuff, but even things as simple as does she want turn on the living room tv or turn on THE living room tv, can be the difference between it working and not. If your goal is to have your family use it to, it needs to work, and work well, or they will just give up quickly. - Has a tendency to think it hears its wake word, and will answer questions you did not ask, or tell you she did not understand what you were asking. Creepy. * If you use a fire TV and you want to control your firetv - DO NOT GET THE GOOGLE HOME -- these two companies have made a cognizant decision not to play nice in the sandbox for the time being - so do not even bother. That is not to be said though of the Android devices. The Echo seems to do just fine talking to those. I personally am using both, Google for most of my home automation around lights, and thermostate, turning devices on and off, but use the Echo for hows the weather tomorrow and my Prime music Catalogue.

Amazon's Echo speakers have come a long way since they were initially introduced. I wasn't a fan of the original Echo, Echo Dot, or 2nd generation Echo Dot speakers. I thought their audio quality was subpar for the price (and just outright bad as in the case with the 1st and 2nd gen Dots), heavy reliance on Bluetooth for audio playback defeated the purpose, and thought the larger Echo was nothing more than a glorified speaker for a home assistant. I had a couple of 2nd gen Dots mainly to control Alexa but focused on Alexa-enabled speakers from other brands. Not only did they have better sound quality but they were better built and had more features. Fast forward to today and things have changed. The 2nd gen Echo still isn't going to compete with a Sonos One but it has vastly improved to the point where I actually don't mind it for listening to music. Content isn't flat, there's a surprising amount of bass for how small the speaker is, and Amazon has improved Alexa's ability to hear me even when content is playing. I have since replaced my Dots all with 2nd gen Echo's and have not been disappointed. I am a Prime member and was mainly using Prime Music, the free music service offered to Prime members, for my music needs at home. It was enough to get me through a party, hosting dinner guests, or taking a shower (I have an Echo in my bathroom). I then tried Amazon Music Unlimited, I signed up for the free trial where 3 months were only $1. I like Amazon's music service except for one thing: I can't upload my own missing files. Amazon Music Unlimited is missing entire albums from some of my favorite bands and one of them doesn't even offer their content digitally (Tool). With Google Music or Apple Music, I can upload my own mp3 files which comes in handy to fill in the gaps of streaming services. Amazon used to let you do this but they don't anymore. Then Apple opened up Apple Music and now the Echo speakers work with it. Amazon is working on adding Apple Music to other Alexa-enabled speakers but, for right now, it only works on Echo speakers made by Amazon. Either way, it has made my music experience better. Things still aren't perfect. For example, I can't say "Alexa, shuffle my Best of Ghost playlist." Alexa will play my Best of Ghost playlist on Apple Music but it won't shuffle. Instead, I have to say "Alexa, play my Best of Ghost playlist" and then "Alexa, shuffle." That's how it works with Spotify, Tidal, and Deezer as well. However, with Amazon Music Unlimited, I can actually say "Alexa, shuffle my Best of Ghost playlist" and it will work just fine. Alexa also won't work with smart playlists. I have Apple Music setup to put songs I give a heart to in a playlist automatically for me, I call it my "Best of" playlist. Echo speakers won't see it. I also have other playlists called "Best of Ghost," "Best of ..." where I setup smart playlists to gather songs from specific bands that I give a heart to. Alexa doesn't see those as well. You also can't control where Apple Music is playing unless it's on other Alexa speakers, Sonos control hasn't been released. So it's not perfect but it's something. Apple Music sounds good coming from the 2nd gen Echo. It's not as good as my Sonos One but I'm ok with that given that the 2nd gen Echo takes up about half the space of a Sonos One. It blends in easier and does the job. I like that I can tell Alexa which Echo speaker to play Apple Music on though grouping speakers together is a bit of a pain. Unlike with my 2nd gen Dots, Alexa always hears every command. I can have music playing at 8/10 and Alexa picks up my voice just fine. I don't have to repeat commands like I did before and the blue light sits there blinking a lot less after a command is given. Aside from better integrating Apple Music, I wish Amazon offered a more rugged version of the 2nd gen Echo with a built-in battery. I would love to take one of these in my backyard and put it by my grill, on my table, or maybe out next to a pool. There are 3rd party batteries and even Alexa-enabled speakers (such as the UE Blast/Megablast) but the batteries don't do anything for making the Echo more rugged and the Alexa-enabled speakers don't work with Apple Music (yet). I also think it's time Amazon added a small display to these. Nothing much, just a small 2"X2" LCD panel that cycles through the time and date, whether, shows the album art of music that's playing, etc. That would give them an advantage over Google and make the Echo products even more premium. I'm not saying the display needs a camera paired with it or that things need to be like they are with the Echo Spot and Echo Show but something along the lines of what Bose has done with their new speaker, just smaller and in an Echo device that's not $300. Other than that, I think the 2nd gen Echo is a vast improvement. It's sound quality is even better than the older, larger Echo speakers and the far-field microphones are even better. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to start a whole-home audio system but doesn't feel like paying the high prices of Bose and Sonos. Yes, those will be better products but they should be for $200+. For the price, the 2nd gen. Echo sounds more than serviceable and will definitely get the job done.

I actually really like the concept of the product. It is fun just to play around with, but difficult to operate, which I'll go into detail about later. I recommend the echo plus over the echo, if you don't already have one. The built-in hub on the echo plus isn't necessary, unless you plan on buying one smart light bulb are a time because the packs come with a hub free (an echo dot is sufficient and cheaper). I bought the echo for my teenage son to stream on. The speaker quality is great for music and can be increased fairly loud without distortion. Now for the difficulty with operating. For starters, your echo doesn't have many bells and whistles prepackaged. You have to search skills, which are kind of like apps or lessons to teach Alexa. There are many different skills you can teach Alexa, so make sure you have time to look through them. Now you've taught Alexa skills, but for every skill you must remember how to communicate exactly as instructed on the skill page or Alexa will not understand (e.g. "Alexa, tell to perform such and such task). If you don't remember the phrases to get Alexa to perform the skill you can always look through your app and under skills to find directions. Who will remember all the specific wording for each skill? Plus, the whole point in speaking to Alexa is that it's hands-free, so looking at the app for directions isn't convenient. It gets very frustrating if you don't have the Alexa app handy. Next, if you plan on controlling plugs or lights with Alexa you have to download apps from the manufacturer. Your now cluttered phone is even more cluttered and you don't speak the same language as Alexa. She also has difficulty understanding a lot of questions and you have to rephrase them several times for her to give you any answer. I love, love, love the functions I can remember the wording for Alexa to perform the task. There are so many things Alexa can do that listing them would make this review entirely too long. I will list my favorites and most useful to me. Turns on lights or plugs. Groups lights, traffic report, weather, and many other functions together to be performed with one command (e.g. "Alexa, good morning"). Orders pizza. Tells jokes. Gives answers to questions you have. Controls TV. Sends messages and makes calls. Adds things to grocery lists. Sets reminders so you won't forget things. Adds appointments to your phone or email linked calendar. Helps kids with homework. Plays games for adults and kids.

The new Amazon Echo is smaller in height than the original but boasts the same 2" woofer with a slightly smaller tweeter. By slightly I mean by 2 millimeters. I have had the new one for a couple of hours now and from my observation the sound quality is much better. With the release of this newer version comes a few abilities that the original was lacking. For me the biggest improvement is the ability to stream music to all echo devices simultaneously. I have 1 original echo and 3 dots scattered throughout my house. And I can tell you that the sync in music between them is perfect. Even when you ask one a question it will quiet the music on that one echo while the rest play at regular volume. The other thing is now you can train the echo to know different people's voices in your household. Before my wife would have to switch to her amazon account to get her work traffic info. This is no longer the case. The last improvement is the ability to have 'routines'. You can setup a trigger command and have Alexa execute a series of different things. While great in theory this could really use improvement. Basic phrases like "Alexa, good night" or "Alexa, good morning" will trigger the desired actions. When I tried to create one that was "Alexa, Good Bye" she said she couldn't execute that. Which is a huge miss on Amazon's part. I would use that phrase to turn on/off specific lights in my house and change the thermostat. Instead I have to say "Alexa, I'm heading out". While not a big difference in verbiage but who really says that? I also found many of the custom phrases I wanted to make wouldn't work either. For a device that can understand human speech she couldn't execute the command "Alexa, I am leaving in five minutes". Which I wanted to use to tell me the traffic on my commute to work. Overall I like the device and it can only get better in time but I feel that some of the new features were rolled out before they did a lot of beta testing.

I've only been using the Echo for about a month but I have already enjoyed the benefits of owning it. I'm 66 and marginally tech savvy and I was able to set it up easily. Weather reports, movie times and locations, reviews, jokes, news, music, controlling lights and outlet plugs...all by voice. I'm also surprised at how responsive Echo is even when music volume is up. All I have to do is speak at a normal volume level, even from another room, and it responds. I'm about to start using it to make phone calls and I'm sure that I'll be using that feature often, as well, when I get used to it. Unobtrusive, aesthetically pleasing, excellent sound quality with the ability to connect to my primary sound system, with more capability than I will probably use. It occurs to me that this would be helpful for Seniors at home and if something should happen ('I've fallen and I can't get up!') that if the voice command for calling someone is active a person in distress could make emergency calls just by voice. That, to me, would be a 'game-changer' for some families with elder relatives. My wife passed a few months ago and the apartment has been very quiet and I have, most often, been very lonely. Although it might sound strange, it's comforting to have a responsive, human sounding voice to interact with when those difficult moments occur. Programs are being written to achieve interactive conversations with Echo. The initial programs are in place to try out and experiment with - and need a fair amount of additional developing - but are 'promising', if that kind of thing doesn't disturb you. I'm not sure how I feel about too much intuitiveness (the potential of AI) but I would not mind being able to have an engaging conversation with Echo when I'm feeling disconnected from the rest of the world and it's midnight (and no one else is awake to speak with). It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the capabilities of these devices. Very happy with this purchase and I'm considering a second unit so that I have coverage throughout the apartment!

Build quality 10/10 Voice recognition 9/10 Sound quality 9/10 Smart assistant skills, if it were possible on a one to ten scale it should be in the negative, my problem with Alexa as a smart assistant and the devices she’s enabled on is not the tech, but rather the way Alexa as an artificial intelligence fails to implement basic features to cater to her users wellbeing, after simulating calls of distress using her wake word then saying phrases such as “I think someone just broke into my house” she gives replies showing she’s not actually made to help simply saying “hmm I don’t know that one”... it’s the response she gives when she’s not programmed to recognize something, but as a smart assistant who is listening with an active microphone 24/7 if she’s not listening with the intent of keeping you safe, what is she listening for? Obviously her wake word so that you can give her a command because she’s not allowed to record anything until she has been activated... if that’s the case then explain the articles online of people who had transcripts of entire conversations sent to complete strangers over the Internet, even though she or her wake word were never even referenced. A simple test of asking her what she was made for results in a description ending with the line “I was made to be useful” but when you ask her what it means to be useful she gives the same “hmm I don’t know that one” If you’re ok with knowing that you’re paying for a device that has the ability to send anything it hears to anyone it thinks it should at any time it thinks it needs to then buy some of these and have some of the best smart home devices out right now, but if you have half a care of self interest, save your money and your privacy and wait till we see all of the side effects of what these things can do. -Nick Hohmann Ex Alexa user

Amazon Echo The Amazon Echo is a great device with many benefits that can improve everyone’s day to day life, and only has a few minor drawbacks that does not take away much from the quality of the product. The Echo is useful for anyone who wants to initiate music, catch up on news headlines, and find out the weather for the day from simply speaking to the device. Within this review I hope to highlight the many benefits and few drawbacks so that you can make a smart purpose. The criteria for my judgement is as follows: Compatibility: The Amazon Echo is compatible with just about any device. Through the use of Bluetooth, both Apple and Android phones can connect to the speaker. There is also a 3.5 mm audio output for auxiliary chords to plug into in case the bluetooth is not working. All of these features and wide varieties of devices that are compatible with the Echo make this product available for almost all consumers. Convenience: Even though the positive attributes of the Echo outweigh the negatives, the convenience of the product is the only topic that you will find drawbacks in. The Echo is 3.5 in. wide by 5.5 in. tall, making it easy to transport around. Although it is easy to carry around, you still need internet connection to use a majority of the features. If internet connection is nonexistent, the Amazon Echo will not be very convenient for your needs. Sound Quality: Although the sound quality has not always been the best for the Echo, it has improved tremendously. The Echo being sold now is the second generation, which improved the whole device. With the new generation you will experience flawless sound flowing out of the speaker. The new generation of the product is arguably one of the cleanest sounding speakers on the market and you will never second guess the sound quality. Durability: The durability of this product is top notch. I can think of numerous times that the speaker has been knocked over, and fallen off of elevated surfaces, and came out without even a scratch on it. When you pick up the product you can feel the durability. It feels hard as a brick, and the outer shell of the Echo provides an extra layer of protection to absorb falls from raised surfaces. Rating When considering all of the different areas of the product, the benefits out number the drawbacks by a long shot. For a reasonable price of $89.99, the Amazon Echo can be all yours. It will cover many needs that you may not even realize you have! If the price is too high, you can consider getting one of the smaller Echo speakers for a lesser price, but you will be sacrificing quality for the price. Overall I would rate this product a 4/5 stars.

I already own 3 Echo Dots (2nd generation, all bought when they were on sale) that are connected to speakers or audio systems because the sound quality of the Dot’s speaker isn’t good enough for music. I recently bought the newest Dot (also on sale) and the sound quality was good enough for short sessions of casual listening but still not great. But it is good enough that I decided to try the Echo. And I’m glad I did. Considering the size and price of this smart speaker, the sound was a pleasant surprise. Of course it’s not as full as a multi-speaker sound system, but it’s a lot faster to tell Alexa to play Spotify, Sirius, or Audible and get immediate results. The bass response is strong enough to make the table vibrate (you can’t see or hear the vibration, but you can feel it). Yes, the bass can sound somewhat muddy or restricted at times, but it’s not bad enough to bother me. It’s a trade-off of convenience and audio quality. The high end is quite good as long as you don’t crank the volume to the very highest level. Depending on the music, that can get a little harsh. But the clarity overall is pretty good for midrange and high end. Remember, it’s a very small speaker and it’s not very expensive. It is not an audiophile speaker and it doesn’t claim to be. And unlike a Bluetooth speaker, it doesn’t rely on your phone, though you can use your phone to control the content you stream (such as Spotify). Echo devices support Apple Music now, but support and controlling the music is quite limited compared to Spotify. You have to do it all with voice commands. Hopefully Apple and Amazon will work on improving the integration of Apple Music. It supports all the services that any Echo device does and the microphones are good enough that they can hear you from across a room even if the speaker is playing music, or if your TV is on. For the money, and considering everything it does besides just playing music, I think this is a great speaker.