A:AnswerNo you do not need an Amazon Prime acct. you do need internet access to download the app to enable skill set, etc. I had questions when I first got my Echo, I called Amazon customer service support, they were very helpful. Hope this helps. I love my Echo!
A:AnswerBest Buy sells the Amazon Dot for the exact same price as Amazon. If you have Prime, you'll get it in two days. If not, a couple days longer. So if you can't find it in your local Best Buy, try Amazon.com.
A:AnswerEach of the products you mentioned have their own ecosystem. Sonos only connect to Sonos, Amazon speakers with Amazon speakers. You can't mix and match. However you can connect a Bluetooth speaket to any Amazon devices.
A:AnswerShort answer, no. However you can create an amazon play list with the amazon prime music app and play your songs that way, assuming they are in amazons library.
A:AnswerThe Echo and Echo dot are basically identical and work completely independently of one another. The primary difference is the large Echo has the higher quality built in speaker system for music playback and can't transmit a Bluetooth signal. The built in speaker in the Echo dot is quite serviceable for anything but quality music playback. In place of this the Echo Dot can connect to a better self powered speaker set through Bluetooth or a mini audio 3.5mm jack. The artificial Alexa intelligence functions identically on both the Echo and Dot.
