Echo Dot with Clock (2022) review: an almost perfect smart speaker

The latest Echo Dot with Clock ($59.99, fifth-gen) reveals extra information on its brighter, greater (however nonetheless small) show, has extra useful sensible house options because of a brand new temperature sensor, and has a brand new accelerometer that makes faucet to snooze really work. Add in higher sound and a speedier Alexa on board, and that is greater than only a minor improve.

The Echo Dot with Clock has lengthy been my favourite small sensible speaker, and with these enhancements, it’s now my go-to sensible alarm clock. As somebody who spends most of her day surrounded by screens, the glanceable LED grid show on the Dot with Clock is a welcome respite at nighttime, offering simply sufficient info at my bedside to be useful with out being distracting. My different most popular bedside desk sensible speaker is the second-gen Google Nest Hub (the one with no digital camera). Whereas the Nest does a very good job of mixing into the background at night time because of its matte show, the smaller footprint and lack of display screen make the Dot with Clock a much less intrusive bedside companion.

Amazon’s Echo Dots are essentially the most feature-rich sensible audio system you may get for the value. Low-cost and straightforward to stay wherever, they’re Amazon’s try so as to add its voice assistant to each room of your own home. Powered by Alexa, the Dot can do most every thing its greater siblings can, together with stream music, set timers, run Alexa Routines, management sensible house gadgets, play video games, inform jokes, and work as a house intercom and phone. 

For 2022, Amazon has upgraded the complete Echo Dot vary — the Echo Dot, Echo Dot Youngsters Version, and Echo Dot with Clock — with extra sensors, quicker processors, higher sound, and the flexibility to behave as Wi-Fi extenders on an Eero community. For most individuals, the modifications aren’t compelling sufficient to improve from a fourth-gen mannequin. However these fashions are at present out of inventory on Amazon, so in case you are searching for the most effective Echo expertise within the smallest package deal, you’ll be proud of any of the brand new ones. 

The most important enchancment to the vary is within the Echo Dot with Clock (which is the third model with a clock however with the fifth-gen speaker). That is the mannequin I examined for this overview, and whereas the general design is similar to the prior model, Amazon has changed the four-digit, seven-segment LED show with a brighter, extra useful LED dot-matrix show.

Now, along with displaying the time, quantity stage, alarms, and timers, the Dot can present a scrolling climate forecast, track title, and different textual content responses to queries. The scrolling function is a tad gimmicky. It will possibly solely present just a few characters at a time, so it’s important to stand there for 30 seconds to learn a track title and artist when you may merely ask Alexa to call the track. However it’s additionally form of enjoyable. The climate forecast readout, with the temperature and somewhat cloud, solar, or rain icon, is extra helpful and barely quicker than listening to Alexa say the forecast. 

One function we bought numerous use out of in my family was asking Alexa to do a math calculation. It now reveals the outcome on the Dot in addition to saying it aloud. (After I say “we,” I imply my 11-year-old daughter.) It additionally scrolls a phrase when “I” ask it to spell one thing, which is useful I hear. 

The brand new Dots additionally bought two new sensors: a temperature sensor and an accelerometer. The accelerometer improves the tap-to-snooze gesture and provides extra gestures. These embody faucet to pause or resume music and faucet to finish a name. And the tapping works significantly better. I used to be by no means in a position to get faucet to snooze to work on the sooner Dot, and right here, it’s a better course of. It nonetheless requires a considerably hefty faucet, however you possibly can faucet largely wherever on the speaker to get the response you need. (Earlier than, you needed to goal the very high, which was fiddly and didn’t work). 

Lastly, in case you use the Amazon-owned Eero mesh Wi-Fi system, the brand new Dot can act as a Wi-Fi extender. That function simply arrived as an replace on the fourth-gen Echo and can be coming to the fourth-gen Dot later this 12 months, so it’s probably not a purpose to improve to the fifth-gen Dot by itself. One purpose to improve is that if your child (otherwise you) actually likes owls and dragons. The 2 new Echo Dot Youngsters Editions value $59.99 and embody a two-year guarantee and a 12 months’s subscription to Amazon Youngsters Plus.

The one main disappointment total with the brand new Dots is that, for some purpose, Amazon has eliminated the three.5mm audio jack from the Dot. The jack allow you to hook up the Dot to a extra highly effective speaker and was a simple approach to flip a greater nonconnected speaker into a sensible one. The fourth-gen and third-gen Dots have the audio jack, so that you’re not out of luck if you’d like this function. It’s also possible to use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to hook up with different audio system.

Whereas this can be a agency favourite for me as a bedside sensible speaker, I additionally examined the Echo Dot with Clock within the kitchen and the toilet. In each locations, its glanceable show proved extra helpful than the common Dot; the clock is very useful on busy mornings once we’re attempting to get out the door on time. 

The brand new temperature sensor can inform you the temperature within the room (and present you on the show) in addition to set off Alexa Routines. I set it to show up the AC when it will get too heat within the kitchen, and it labored reliably with out me having to ask Alexa to regulate the Ecobee thermostat whereas I toiled over a scorching range.

The onboard ultrasound movement sensor, which can be within the fourth-gen Dot, is useful for turning lights on while you stroll into the room. It’s not fairly as quick as a devoted movement sensor, just like the Philips Hue one I usually use in each my kitchen and loo, nevertheless it’s solely a beat or so behind, and it’s good to not want a second gadget within the room. 

All Echo audio system can also set off Routines once they detect sure varieties of sounds. These embody working water, a canine barking, an equipment beeping, loud night breathing, a child crying, and coughing. I examined the beep detection within the kitchen and bought Alexa notifications on my cellphone when my toast popped up, when my microwave lunch was prepared, and once more when my dishwasher was carried out. I needed to guess which alert was for which equipment; the notifications simply advised me “beeping detected.”

I additionally arrange a Routine that performed my favourite radio station from Apple Music at any time when I turned on the faucet within the kitchen. Who doesn’t like some tunes enjoying once they’re washing up? Nonetheless, the working water sound set off is a bit delicate: it will begin blasting the music at any time when there was any sound within the kitchen. This additionally occurred within the lavatory. The concept was to run a Routine that reads the climate and my calendar after which performs NPR within the morning when the bathe begins, however the Routine would begin enjoying on the smallest tinkle of working water (if you understand what I imply). 

Earlier than I transfer on, I do have to complain in regards to the Alexa app as soon as once more. You want it so as to arrange Alexa Routines, resembling these described above. It’s a large number. Arduous to navigate, excruciatingly gradual, not sufficient group choices, and simply usually disagreeable to make use of as a sensible house controller, the Alexa app is ripe for a makeover. 

Apple, Google, and Samsung have all made main updates and refreshes to their sensible house apps now that Matter, the brand new sensible house commonplace that can work throughout all these platforms, is rolling out. And I actually, actually, actually hope Amazon has a brand new app within the works. Something, please.

Amazon’s large promoting level for the Dot lineup is healthier sound. The corporate claims it has utterly redesigned the audio structure to ship two instances the bass of the prior mannequin. This features a greater driver — as much as 1.73 inches from 1.6 inches. That’s not a giant soar, and that is nonetheless a small speaker. However it did higher at filling a room with good sound than the fourth-gen Dot. The audio can be a contact crisper and clearer at louder volumes and on bassier tracks. 

If you’re searching for a small speaker with good sound, Apple’s HomePod Mini continues to be superior. However it’s virtually twice the value. The Dot will do an honest job of filling a bed room, workplace, or dorm room with sound. The opposite choice for a diminutive sensible speaker — the Nest Mini — doesn’t come shut by way of sound high quality. (Though, having the ability to mount it to a wall, which neither of the opposite audio system can do with out clumsy equipment, provides somewhat extra dimension to the in any other case tinny sound.) All three manufacturers provide a stereo pairing function for fuller sound. 

The brand new Dots are the primary Echo audio system with Amazon’s AZ2 neural edge processor. First launched within the Echo Present 15 sensible show final 12 months, the AZ2 permits Echo gadgets to course of extra actions regionally, leading to quicker responses to easy prompts. After I requested for the climate or to set a timer, the Dot normally responded in lower than two seconds, in comparison with simply over three seconds on the fourth-gen gadget. The brand new processor additionally helps velocity up movement detection, in keeping with Amazon, and the fifth-gen Dot did activate my lights quicker than the fourth-gen mannequin.

Probably the most intriguing new function is that the brand new Dots can act as Wi-Fi extenders for an Eero mesh system. I simply needed to hyperlink my Amazon and Eero accounts within the Eero app to allow this. Eero says every Dot can add as much as 1,000 sq. toes of protection and assist speeds of as much as 100Mbps and as much as 10 gadgets. It makes use of Eero’s TrueMesh software program expertise, tapping into the dual-band Wi-Fi radios within the audio system to search out the strongest connection after which lengthen it. 

Based mostly on my testing, it’s not going to provide the identical efficiency as in case you have been related to an Eero node, nevertheless it could possibly be useful to increase protection to, say, a video doorbell or safety digital camera outdoors your house.

After just a few setup hiccups (the Dot wanted a software program improve, then the Eero community wanted one, too), I may see the Dot in my Eero app with an choice to make use of it to increase Wi-Fi. I toggled it on and initially bought a warning that the Dot was too near an Eero and wouldn’t lengthen something. As soon as I moved it farther away, it began to work. 

When my laptop computer related to the Dot, I bought speeds of 25Mbps up and 12 down in an space of my home the place I might normally get 70 / 26 from my 1.3Gbps Xfinity service. My colleague Dan Seifert additionally noticed related velocity drops when testing a fifth-gen Dot in his home on an Eero community. 

If I may select which gadgets related to the Dot — and, say, simply put my sensible lights on it — this could be extra useful to me. However it wasn’t a fantastic expertise when my laptop computer related because it minimize my speeds in half. Throughout testing, I had three Eero Professional 6E routers working in a 2,300-square-foot brick house, so my community didn’t actually need this.

However when you’ve got a single Eero and a few useless spots, this can work nicely as a inexpensive resolution than including one other Eero node (particularly if you have already got an Echo Dot or have been going to purchase one anyway). Simply anticipate to see lower than half the speeds you’d with one other Eero. (I plan to check this once more with a special community configuration when extra Echo gadgets have the function).

As I’ve stated, the Echo Dot with Clock is my favourite small sensible speaker. It bridges the hole between voice-only sensible audio system and Amazon’s extra useful however extra intrusive sensible shows (which all have cameras and overly vibrant screens). 

The fifth-gen Dots sound higher, reply quicker, and may do extra together with your sensible house than the sooner fashions. However at $60, the Dot with Clock with its glanceable show is pricey in comparison with the common Dot. Additionally, the fourth-gen Dot would usually see worth drops or be given away without spending a dime with different merchandise. It’s uncommon to see a sale on a Dot with Clock. 

For me, the right Echo sensible speaker is the large boy fourth-gen Echo, which is at present on sale for $50 (down from $100). Get that and never this in case you are searching for a sensible speaker with actually good sound. It has all the opposite options of the brand new Echo Dot, too, together with the temperature sensors and the flexibility to behave as a Wi-Fi extender for Eero networks, plus a Zigbee radio. However it doesn’t have the AZ2 processor.

The bigger Echo can be a Thread border router, too, which is vital for the Matter sensible house commonplace. (Amazon has stated all its Echo sensible audio system can be Matter controllers, in a position to management Matter gadgets, however that solely the Echo fourth-gen can be upgraded to be a Thread border router.) The one factor lacking from the Echo is that LED show. I want Amazon would add one; then, it will be my excellent sensible speaker. Within the meantime, if you’d like the enjoyable and considerably useful options of the LED show, the fifth-gen Echo Dot with Clock is the Alexa sensible speaker to get.

Pictures by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge