Echo Dot (3rd Gen) - Compact Bluetooth Speaker with Alexa - Charcoal Fabric

We now have 3 echo dots - one in the living room, another in our bedroom and a 3rd in the kids' room. I was dubious about the supposed benefits of a (possibly) sentient AI present in the home, attempting to make sense of commands from householders ranging in age from 3 to 43. But...it just works.Perhaps the best example of this is how easily the kids have adopted the technology. Our boys (aged 3 and 6) just love asking Alexa to play their favourite songs on Spotify, read a story on Cbeebies or give them random facts about dinosaurs (and when it all becomes too annoying, you can stop voice recognition with the touch of a button).We own an ageing Pure internet radio and wouldn't be without it. But Alexa just makes it so easy to request any of our favourite radio stations in the evening - Jazz FM, Mellow Magic, Classic FM etc. At bedtime, Alexa obligingly plays soothing ambient playlists, helping the boys off to sleep.Other reviews laud the improvement in sound quality of the 3rd generation - owning neither the previous Dot or any other Echo devices, I have nothing to compare this to. What I can say is that the sound quality relative to the size of the speaker, is impressive. Whilst it won't necessarily handle parties or larger areas so well, the Dot easily caters to an average-sized room for day-to-day domestic use across a range of audio sources (radio, Spotify, Prime Music etc). The integration of an equalizer within the app only helps tweak your preferred levels according to room/location etc.The app itself is relatively intuitive and a set of on-screen instructions guide you through wi-fi set up, adding your first device and so on. Adding new devices and skills (kind of like virtual apps) is simple too - you can name each (we've done that according to location - living room, master bedroom etc.) and access the individual settings quickly and easily. All I would say is that it f something goes wrong in the setup of a device with the app, it's quite easy to get caught in a 'loop' when attempting to repeat the process - but I was eventually able to resolve this and, to be fair, it only happened the once.The device itself has a satisfying weight and looks great (we have both black and white devices) - the ring of light is easily visible, even on a bright day, and the overall build quality is excellent. The 'far field voice recognition' is quite simply brilliant - Alexa will pick up a command from any part of the room (command activation defaults to 'Alexa' but there are other options available in-app) with no issues. Use of the voice-interface is surprisingly intuitive, and very quickly feels natural - I was really surprised at this as the thought of speaking to a device just seemed odd before.Alexa also appears to understand variations on common commands, which again all helps with that intuitive feel - to the point where I find myself wishing my other devices had this technology (physically interacting with my internet radio - albeit touch screen - now seems somehow clunky :-).If, like I was, you're thinking 'is this just a glorified bluetooth speaker?' - all I'd say is give it a try. At the current price of £29, you can't go wrong. All I would suggest is that you consider buying two whilst it's reduced, as you'll very quickly find yourself wanting another.

I bought three of these as Christmas gift purchases, with one being for myself! I've never been too bothered about trying a smart speaker, but thought it was worth investigating given the great price in the Black Friday sale - and I love it! It was so easy to set up, very intuitive and simple, with Alexa guiding you through the process and making suggestions for what you can do.Once up and running, I was surprised at how quickly I found the Dot useful in my daily life. Like many other people currently, I'm having real trouble sleeping, and so at night I ask Alexa to help me sleep, and in no time I'm drifting off to the sounds of meditation music or the sounds of the rainforest. I especially love the whisper function, so that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I don't have to fumble around for my phone to check the time, and I don't have to wake the rest of the household by having Alexa loudly tell me the time! When I get up in the morning, I can ask Alexa what the weather is like while I'm getting ready, so I know how layered up I have to be to brave the winter dog walk! I've also used it for timers when I'm cooking, and for dropping in on my kids' Echo Dots rather than shouting through the house for their attention!I also signed up for the audible free trial and the music unlimited free trial, and I've been enjoying listening to audiobooks and songs when I need to relax a bit. Not sure I'll continue with audible, but the music unlimited deal that lets you play songs through the Dot for £3.99 a month seems quite good. My daughter was given a wee Google Nest smart speaker as a gift today, so she set that up and then we asked each device in turn to play the same song so we could compare the sound quality - the Echo Dot won by the mile! Much clearer and cleaner sound quality, very impressive for its small size.Overall, absolutely chuffed that I took a chance and bought this fab wee speaker - sure, you can do all the stuff above without a Dot, but it's much simpler and more enjoyable to just be able to ask Alexa to do it for you!