Amazon Echo Speakers review, Alexa Voice command is a gamer changer!

Amazon Echo Speakers is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask.

Pros & Cons:

Introduction

With everyone slowly adopting to smart homes, new peripherals are popping up here and there that offer new and creative ways on how homes can be improved with the help of technology.

Such is the case for the Amazon echo Speakers review. It may look like an ordinary speaker at first, but it’s actually a smart speaker that can basically aid you with your day to day tasks. This includes writing down tasks, checking the weather or even getting you an Uber. It’s a device that can literally be your home assistant.

 

It’s powered by Alexa – Amazon’s version of Siri. But the Amazon Echo offers more than just Alexa’s quick wits, since it manages to integrate easily with your everyday routines

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Amazon echo Speakers Manufacturer’s Specification

• Size : 235 x 84 x 84 mm
• Weight: 1064 grams
• Wi-Fi Connectivity: Dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO) for faster streaming and fewer dropped connections than standard Wi-Fi. Supports 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi networks. Does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks.
• Bluetooth Connectivity: Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) support for audio streaming from your mobile device to Amazon Echo and Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) for voice control of connected mobile devices. Hands-free voice control is not supported for Mac OS X devices.
• Audio: 2.5 inch woofer and 2.0 inch tweeter
• System Requirements: Amazon Echo comes ready to connect to your Wi-Fi. The Alexa App is compatible with Fire OS, Android, and iOS devices and also accessible via your web browser.

Design and Specification

The Amazon Echo Speakers comes in a cylindrical design with speaker grills located at the bottom. It comes in black and white finishes, and the design makes it easy to place anywhere in your home.

This speaker includes seven microphones which is capable of easily recognizing your voice in the middle of the room. Along with that, it also includes a 6 cm woofer and a 5 cm tweeter that should be able to fill up a small room with sound.

There’s also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and just like any wireless speaker you can also use it to stream music from any audio device.

The top part house two buttons for the mute and action functions. A volume ring is placed on top that controls the volume. Embedded LED lights in the ring cleverly gives you an idea about the current volume level. A remote control is also included in the package.

 

Setup

Once the Amazon Echo is plugged in you would need to download the free Alexa app to finalize the setup of the device. It’s hassle-free, and the app will also let you add some ‘skills’ to the Amazon Echo.

Skills are what makes the Amazon Echo smart. It provides various ways for Alexa to learn and recognize new tasks like ordering an Uber, getting news from CNN, or even order a pizza from Domino’s. It can even read out your tweets if you connect your Twitter account. Again, the possibilities are endless.

You initiate the Amazon Echo by using the hot word ‘Alexa’ and then proceeding on asking a question.

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Performance

What I noticed with the Amazon Echo is that the more I use it, the more comfortable I become with it. This means that every morning I can simply ask Alexa the latest news or if the weather will be pleasant. It becomes natural and part of my everyday routine.

For example, I can ask Alexa to turn on the Bluetooth and then simply stream my music to it. Sound was okay and manages to fill a small room with sound. That being said, the quality of the speakers could have been better – considering this is still a wireless speaker I would have expected more from the sound output.

But as mentioned, what makes the Amazon Echo great is the skills it learns – though the problem is that at times some information given to us when asking a particular question isn’t always accurate. Amazon usually gets answers from Bing, and if that information is erroneous, so is Alexa’s answers.

Another thing is that the Amazon Echo is primarily supported on only a few countries. If you are in Dubai for example, there is no way you can set the country to UAE so I had to choose a different US City just to be able to it. The problem is that most of the information that will be provided like weather details will be based on that US city that you have chosen.

 

Supplied Accessories

• Amazon Echo Speakers
• Power adapter/cable (6 ft.)
• Quick start guide

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Conclusion

The Amazon Echo showcases a lot of potential and gives you a preview of how smart homes will work in the future. Its limited support is what keeping us from giving a full recommendation but overall, Alexa is one assistant we’d love to have in our homes.