Amazon - Echo Dot (2nd generation) - Smart Speaker with Alexa - Black

This is my 4th Amazon Echo Dot to put in my smart home. I think that says it all. I have one in the main living room that can easily be heard from the kitchen and dining room, one in the master bedroom so there’s never a need to get out of bed to turn off the lights that may have been forgotten. It’s invaluable for those nights that you just pour into bed exhausted after a long day. I have one in the guest bedroom which eliminates the need for guests to discover the intricacies of my home, i.e. which switch does what, where is the switch for this light? No worries, just let Alexa know what you’d like to do in my home and ¡voila! she will do it. I have a 4th Amazon Echo Dot in my office along with an Ecobee thermostat in the hall that also has the full Alexa features. She will not only regulate the HVAC but with Alexa’s assistance, my thermostat will turn lights on and off, open and close the garage door, lock or unlock the front and back doors, set a timer for the cookies in the oven after first telling me how many teaspoons of vanilla make an 1/8th of a cup and she will also turn off the oven when the cookies are finished. I ran out of chocolate chips making the cookies and I know my daughter would probably enjoy some in her pancakes in the morning. Well, no worries because Alexa has already ordered more for me and the Amazon Prime delivery will arrive in less than two hours from the time she ordered the chocolate chips and more paper towels. I didn’t even realize we were low. Thanks Alexa! I have a wink hub and a wink relay which is an Android 7.0 Nougat OS touchscreen device that is wall mounted where every light switch once was in my home. If you really wanted to push a button rather than speak to my home, you can access any of the apps on any other dozen flat screen relays in my home that also act as an intercom system. Would you like to see who your talking to on the intercom in the other part of the house or at the front or rear door? No problem, all 20 of my security cameras are very easily accessible from any other wink relays too. If you’re by the front or back door, you also have the option of using one of the two Android 7.0 Nougat OS Insignia 10.1” touchscreen tablets that are flush mounted inside the wall and first show what’s on the other side of the doors without ever opening them. Do you see two bicycles by the sidewalk and two teenage boys in black suits that are clearly two size too large hand-me-downs? Well, guess who’s NOT HOME today. Sorry but I already know the good news! It’s that I’ve just avoided a long debate between their believes and my non-denominational Christian bible fact based believes. WHEW! That was close! Thanks to my Amazon Echo Dot devices, I was able to ask Aleza to have the front porch cameras pulled up and shown on the 10.1” touchscreen by the front door before I could even walk all the way to the door from the kitchen where Alexa had just notified me that the timer I had her set has indicated that the chocolate chip with pecan cookies are ready to come out and cool. I’ll bet those poor Morman boys could smell the cookies baking and that’s all they really wanted. I better ask Alexa to close the garage door so that the neighbors kids aren’t teased by the smell of these delicious cookies too. In my home, Alexa also has an assistant to help and her name is Siri and she lives in the iPad Pro and the iPhones throughout my home. If that wasn’t enough, I can alway give the ladies a break and just say, “Ok Google, tell my Wink hub that it’s time to watch a movie. Like magic, the wink hub jumps into action and has my harmony hub tell my harmony remote to turn on the nine 65” smart TVs that make up my video wall, turn on the Yamaha home theater receiver and amp that powers the 7.2 surround sound system, ask the Netflix or Prime app to load the movie we are about to watch while also dimming all of the lights to 10%, turning on the LED strip lights behind my crowne moulding and setting it to my favorite shade of cool blue to match the backlighting LED lights behind the TVs which illuminate the entire video wall and to top it all off, my old time popcorn popper cart has just been powered up and it’s beginning to heat up and that smell of freshly popped corn is not far away. Finally, the wink hub has just set my leather power reclining loveseat into motion moving both ends to the preprogrammed setting that are the most comfortable for me on my end and my guest on the other side. This all happened by simply saying, “it’s time to watch a movie.” The only thing my smart home hasn’t done is bring me a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator but DON’T WORRY, I haven’t mentioned this yet but I am disabled and I have an absolutely amazing Weimaraner service dog who has just gone to my refrigerator in the kitchen and pulled the towel that is tied to the door handle to open it and is bringing me a nice, cool refreshing bottle of water. I’ve tried to get him to bring me the popcorn when it was finished but by the time he got to me, there was hardly any left! Steele really likes popcorn. My smart home is a lot of fun and very technologically advanced. It is not a toy though. It’s a life saver. Being disabled, it has made my life completely different. I would not be able to live here without it. It does much more than I have talked about here. It has even saved my life twice. You see, I have a heart condition that causes me to pass out and fall 6-10 per day on average. Sometimes I’m down for a few seconds, there has been other times that show it was 38 hours before I regained consciousness when my cardiologist watched the recorded security camera footage that he has access to 24/7 from anywhere in the world. He may very well be looking at me right now, as I type this. He can also speak to me and hear me respond. It’s all live and in the now. Creepy you say, Well...if your life depended on it and you were as stubborn as me and absolutely refused to live in a geriatric nursing home. I turned 45 just before Thanksgiving and my home healthcare nurses have actually spent their own time on a weekend to search and visit many nursing homes looking for one with a more suitable age range...maybe one with veterans that have come home and now need assistance too. The only thing we can find is a bunch of nursing homes with a median age of 72, That’s great for a one or two day visit but I don’t want to live there full time. SORRY! My smart home helps me to stay home. There have been times that I’ve come to on the floor and could not move at all. Once I had broken my lumbar spine in the fall and another time, I have broken my cervical spine. My dog is able to simply push a button on my alarm key pad that will call an ambulance. Steele is able to open doors when he hears the diesel engines of the fire trucks and the ambulance outside. I can simply speak to my home and turn on every single light in the house, open the garage door, turn on outside lights and more. Once in the ambulance and everyone is ready to leave, it only takes the push of a button on my iPhone and I can turn off all of the lights, close the garage door, lock all of the doors and fully secure my home. If i’m unconscious (which happens too much) and I wake up in the hospital with my service dog, Steele, lying in the hospital bed with me worried to death, I can then pull up the live cameras at home and double check everything. I can be sure that my home is secure and locked. Most of all, I can watch the recorded footage to see what the heck happened this time! It’s always like someone has hit a reset switch in my brain. I have absolutely ZERO recollection of the events that have let up to me waking up in the hospital. Luckily, I have been there so much and this happens so frequently, I recognize my surroundings immediately and that mitigates some of the fear and confusion. My AMAZON ALEXA ECHO DOTs play a huge roll in my smart home capabilities and functionality. I would recommend them to EVERYONE! Do you have a disabled family member? Do you have a 10 year old techy son? The Echo Dot is great for both of them. It sells for $49.99 but I’ve never paid that much for mine. I’ve always gotten my on sale for $34.99 or as on black friday through cyber monday, I only paid $29.99 for my most recent acquisition. I would recommend keeping an eye open for a sale like I have. They are definitely worth the full price but I am not able to work and I live on a very limited income. My medical bills alone (after insurance) and prescriptions to stay alive, eat up more than my monthly income as it is. I have to really look for the best deals. That’s also why I have the Echo Dots instead of the much, much more expensive full size Echo or the ones with the touch screen, etc. My Echo Dot sounds just as good when playing music using it (which is a main function for someone that isn’t disabled and using to make day to day life easier. I really don’t see anything that the more expensive Alexa options can do that my Dots cannot do just as well. Your grandmother will get a lot of use from it and so will your preteen age child. It’s great for everyone. While you’re at it, buying Christmas gifts, you will definitely want to grab one or two for yourself. Just wrap them and slip them under the tree from Santa. You’ll be happy you did! FYI: I do NOT write reviews. That’s how much I endorse these. If you’re not online buying one already, you should be slapped! What else do you need? You’re reading my review trying to decide. If you’ve made it to the end and haven’t decided, well let me help you....YES, YOU WANT ONE, YOU WANT SIX! PUT THEM IN YOUR CART NOW AND GET ONE FOR EVERYONE! This is the greatest gift!

After a bit more time with the dot, or maybe I should say dots(3dots) since I went out and bought another one for my daughters room, I've come up with a few tips. Setup was very simple. The Echo Dot came with the micro USB cable and wall outlet adapter so just plug those all in and you're ready for next steps. It's already added as a device on my Amazon Prime account so I didn't need to add it as a new device. I just downloaded the Android Alexa app and followed the directions to connect to to my home wireless router. The voice recognition is pretty accurate about 90% of the time. Going further away from the Echo Dot may be a problem especially if there is any subtle background noises. Other than that, if I have it next to my computer, there's usually no problem hearing what I'm saying unless there's loud music playing from it. You can basically ask Alexa almost anything and get some answer or in some cases she'll say unsure. I have been using it to play music, ask trivial questions that come up, tell an occasional joke and check the weather mainly. There's so much more it can do that I haven't touched yet but I am very impressed by this device. Use the best speakers you can with it. I found that while Bluetooth was convenient I got much better sound out of my Bose Soundlink speakers. If a phrase doesn't yield the results you're looking for, reword it and try again. For instance, "Alexa, lower the temperature to 75 degrees" got no result, so I tried "Alexa, Nest Thermostat, 75 degrees" and she picked it up perfectly. Take the time to look through all the skills. I was a bit worried initially that Alexa might be triggered accidentally by ambient TV or general household noise, so I'm really impressed that it's only happened twice so far. Both times in my living room when I was watching TV at high volume. If it's a concern, the mic can be temporarily disabled, so the dot won't trigger and listen accidentally. It's fun to ask Alexa general questions to see if she's capable of finding the answers. So far I've gotten accurate responses to "Alexa, what's the definition of", "Alexa, how far away is", "Alexa, Wikipedia" (just about anything you can think of and she'll tell you more if you ask "Alexa, tell me more"). If you have the time, ask her a set of questions and you'll quickly get used to her nuances. Even though the microphones are extremely sensitive and quite accurate, I've found that the Dot works best when placed on a surface that's close to the level of the person speaking to it. Generally speaking, three to five feet off the ground. Alexa had some trouble hearing my requests when the dot was placed above or behind me.

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.”

Echo Dot (2nd Generation) Recently, I purchased the Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Generation), and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. The Echo Dot has exceeded my expectations; if you decide to purchase this item you will not be disappointed. Design The Echo design is modern and compact. The small size allows you to keep your Echo hidden in plain sight. The Echo Dot has four buttons: two volume buttons (+ and -), microphone off, and an action button, so the device is very simple to use. Sound The Echo Dot produces high quality sound and maintains sound quality even when the volume is maximized. Despite the small size, the Echo Dot has about 40-60 dB of superior sound. Compared to other Bluetooth speakers, the Echo Dot has the most impressive sound quality. “Alexa..” Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Echo Dot is the voice recognition system, “Alexa.” The Echo will respond to anything following you saying “Alexa.” Although the voice recognition may not pick up on what you are saying all of the time, you can rephrase your sentence and she will usually find what you are looking for. Also, to improve the voice recognition, you can voice train Alexa to improve the accuracy of the search. With the Alexa feature you are able to select music, ask questions, call, and even shop without ever looking at a screen or moving from the couch. Wireless The Bluetooth connectivity allows you to pair your phone or any other Bluetooth capable device to the Echo. This feature makes it possible to call, text, and listen to music through the Echo Dot. The Bluetooth connection can reach about 30ft. The Bluetooth can keep connection from room to room without sacrificing quality. Cost Efficient The Echo is also only $39.99. Compared to other Bluetooth speakers on the market such as the JBL Flip 4 and the Beats Pill by Dr. Dre, the Amazon Echo is about $60 cheaper, while maintaining the highest quality. Capability In addition to being helpful for phone purposes, it is also incredibly helpful for looking up information. When referring to a phone, you can say the information is at your fingertips figuratively. Now with the Amazon Echo, it is even better than that. It is on your command in a sense. One can ask anything that they would look up on the internet. The technology is advanced enough that not only can the Echo search anything for you, but it can do it without any touch being involved and only by sound. All in all, this purchase was well worth the small cost. For being as advanced as it is and having the outstanding quality it has, I don’t see anyone being disappointed in this purchase. Treyton Jacobsen

We purchased a few Echo Dots at the same time bought an Echo, so I'll share some of the same comments/feedback that I shared about the Echo. This was our entry point into IoT/smart home devices and we're enjoying it. Not perfect, but it's still early in the game for voice-activated devices. The Dots are a great way for folks to get their Smart Home connected. The speaker on the Dot is what usually receives the most criticism, so I'll add my two cents by saying I feel the speakers are not bad, but adequate. If we want to listen to music and want slightly better quality, we'll pair a Bluetooth speaker. Even a decent $35-25 Bluetooth speaker does the trick, though admittedly we're not audiophiles. Setup was relatively straight-forward. Not a huge fan of the Alexa app, but that's a separate review, I suppose. For the uninitiated, you'll find out that you'll spend quite a bit of time in the app even though this is a voice user-interface device. For example, we have about 35 skills enabled after just over 7 weeks of playing with the devices. It's getting a bit difficult to remember the commands for launching different skills. Ultimately, you'll likely need to refer to the skills list for reminders. I'm surprised how much we use lists, reminders and alarms. If your reminder descriptions are difficult for Alexa to sort out, you'll also find yourself going into the app to edit the reminder. The bigger surprise that we had was how much we appreciate 'Drop In'... think an intercom for your home. We're not in a huge house, but it's just nice not having to yell to get a family member's attention, e.g., dinner time, or a 5-minute warning as we're getting ready to leave the house. Alexa skills that run the gamut - some good (math skills practice, surf report checker, and interactive storytelling skills), some excellent (link to smart devices, streaming content like TED Talks/The Daily/NPR) and all lot not worth even mentioning. One thing we've had a tricky time getting set up is to get Alexa control of our Fire TV. It's been a couple months and a couple failed attempts. There's plenty of documentation online about how to do this, but we just haven't had any luck. I suspect this is mostly user error, but it would be great if 'it just worked' since they are both Amazon products.... honestly this is a relatively minor niggle. Of course, the whole privacy issue lingers in the back of my mind but there's not a lot you can do at this point unless you want to wait on the sidelines for the market to mature. Fingers crossed Amazon and the other smart device companies to do their part.

I purchased the Echo Dot (ED) and 2 Google Home (GH) units. So I am in a position to compare them a bit. They are both loads of fun and since I am not comparing the GH to the original Echo I won't compare features like sound quality, etc. What first attracted me to the ED was the price and the ability to purchase directly from Amazon just by talking to the ED. However, it does much more than that. I would say that the ED is worth every penny if sound quality not your main focus. It does have a built-in speaker but it's not hi-fi in any way. However, it is fine for listening Alexa's voice. Having said that, it does almost everything else the Echo does. And Echo does a lot! What attracted me to GH was the ability (with a Google Cast unit) to stream to my home theater system. I have plenty of music in the Google Cloud and now, rather than playing it through the GH speaker, I can just tell it to play through my home sound system. To me, that's huge. None of the Echo products can do that. Another was the resources the Google has that no one else does. The Echo products use Bing as their information source and GH uses, well... Google! There are many questions that GH can answer that Echo simply can't. So from a general information perspective, GH kicks ED's butt. Google GH is adding new things all the time, as is Amazon. But right now Amazon is kicking GH's butt in terms of working with 3rd party devices. Until recently if you wanted to book an Uber ride you would have to use Alexa. Now I see that you can do the same thing with GH. I'm sure that both of these units and their abilities are in their infancy and you will see much more from both of them in the coming months and years. So in a way, this is about the hardware itself and your trust in the company that developed it. If want to order from Domino's Pizza, or want more options in working with 3rd party devices, the ED wins hands down. They both do the basics (light control, thermostat control, etc.) but the Amazon products works with many more brands at this time. I just look at GH's potential. Google has your calendar, your music, Google Maps, Google Mail, all of your contacts, Google News, Google Translate, etc. And you know they're not just going to sit around and let Amazon beat them at this game. They have so many more resources for your information and and general information that I foresee that Amazon's lead will eventually shrink. Bottom line? I like both of them very much. In many respects, Echo is far ahead of GH. If you must order products from Amazon, or work with specific devices that the ED does and GH does not, and you need all that right now, you need go with an Echo device. If you want instant access to more esoteric or even general information and get answers, GH is best. But remember, this will be a hard fought battle and don't count either company out yet. If you can, just purchase one of each. For around $180 (or less if they are on sale) you can check out the best of both worlds and watch this amazing technology mature before your very eyes (or ears).

These devices are meant to simplify your life by providing access to things like weather reports and news, but alone by themselves, they're basically a path for you to buy things from Amazon or get mundane information you could easily get elsewhere. For example, a short time back you could not ask Alexa (the female voice that speaks to you through the Echo Dot) to add an item to a to-do list. There just weren't any lists provided by Amazon. Now you can add items by voice, but you can't delete them (you have to use the Alexa app on your phone to do that). There's also a shopping list you can add things to, but same thing for deleting items. That's it - you get two lists (to-do and shopping) and you can't delete items from them using voice commands. Perhaps that will change with time. These devices do become useful when tied to other devices and services through a thing called "skills". Want to control music from Spotify? Add the skill. Light switches that support it? Add the skill. Have a viable calendar you can add appointments to? Add the skill. But you do have to have the other services or devices to tie a "skill" to, so you will need to create accounts with those other providers and possibly pay them a fee to use such services. The Echo Dot (or any Amazon device) just connects to them if the service provider has created connectivity for them via a "skill". BTW, adding a "skill" is easy, just give Amazon your credentials (id and password) for the service you want to tie to the Echo. As to the Echo Do for itself, the sound that comes from it is very clear, and the microphones are quite spectacular at capturing your voice from fairly far away. If you speak softly it'll hear you from about 10 feet away. Yell at it from 25 feet or so and it will still respond properly. You are also supposed to be able to connect several of these and the closest one to you will respond (haven't tried that yet, but then it will be quite nice to speak anywhere in one's abode and have the closest device respond). Also bear in mind where you place them. My most difficult test for it was placing it right over a bookshelf speaker I'd tied it to, and playing it at room listening volume (not loud, not soft). The Echo Dot had difficulty at time recognizing the wake work ("Alexa"), but for the most part it did. Voice recognition (parsing spoken commands) is quite good and for the most part you can say things in different ways and still get the result you expected.

These devices are meant to simplify your life by providing access to things like weather reports and news, but alone by themselves, they're basically a path for you to buy things from Amazon or get mundane information you could easily get elsewhere. For example, a short time back you could not ask Alexa (the female voice that speaks to you through the Echo Dot) to add an item to a to-do list. There just weren't any lists provided by Amazon. Now you can add items by voice, but you can't delete them (you have to use the Alexa app on your phone to do that). There's also a shopping list you can add things to, but same thing for deleting items. That's it - you get two lists (to-do and shopping) and you can't delete items from them using voice commands. Perhaps that will change with time. These devices do become useful when tied to other devices and services through a thing called "skills". Want to control music from Spotify? Add the skill. Light switches that support it? Add the skill. Have a viable calendar you can add appointments to? Add the skill. But you do have to have the other services or devices to tie a "skill" to, so you will need to create accounts with those other providers and possibly pay them a fee to use such services. The Echo Dot (or any Amazon device) just connects to them if the service provider has created connectivity for them via a "skill". BTW, adding a "skill" is easy, just give Amazon your credentials (id and password) for the service you want to tie to the Echo. As to the Echo Do for itself, the sound that comes from it is very clear, and the microphones are quite spectacular at capturing your voice from fairly far away. If you speak softly it'll hear you from about 10 feet away. Yell at it from 25 feet or so and it will still respond properly. You are also supposed to be able to connect several of these and the closest one to you will respond (haven't tried that yet, but then it will be quite nice to speak anywhere in one's abode and have the closest device respond). Also bear in mind where you place them. My most difficult test for it was placing it right over a bookshelf speaker I'd tied it to, and playing it at room listening volume (not loud, not soft). The Echo Dot had difficulty at time recognizing the wake work ("Alexa"), but for the most part it did. Voice recognition (parsing spoken commands) is quite good and for the most part you can say things in different ways and still get the result you expected.