Amazon Echo (4th gen) review
Our Verdict
The 4th-gen Amazon Echo is the nearly well-rounded smart speaker.
For
- Sleek spherical design
- Proficient audio for price
- Great smart home skills
- Audio in/out port
Against
- I wish it had a clock
- Audio not as good every bit Sonos 1
Tom'south Guide Verdict
The fourth-gen Amazon Echo is the nigh well-rounded smart speaker.
Pros
- +
Sleek spherical pattern
- +
Skillful audio for price
- +
Great smart dwelling house skills
- +
Audio in/out port
Cons
- -
I wish information technology had a clock
- -
Audio not as skillful as Sonos I
Amazon Echo (4th gen) review: Specs
Audio: 1 3-inch woofer, ii 0.8-inch tweeters
Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/one thousand/due north/ac (ii.4 and 5 GHz)
Wireless: Bluetooth, Zigbee, Sidewalk
Ports: Power, 3.5mm audio in/out
Size: 5.7 10 5.7 x five.2 inches
Weight: 34.2 ounces
The 4th-generation Amazon Echo's spherical pattern marks a serious visual redesign — long gone is the tall cylinder shape of previous models. Still, information technology's what inside the Repeat that makes it i of the best smart speakers you can buy today.
Amazon has granted audio quality a noticeable upgrade, and that'due south simply one of a host of other features that combine to make this one of the finest smart home devices of its kind. Is it worth calculation to your ain dwelling house? Keep reading our Amazon Echo review to find out.
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Amazon Echo review: Cost and availability
The Amazon Repeat (4th gen) went on sale Oct 22 for $99. Information technology's available in iii colors: Charcoal, glacier white, and twilight blue.
You tin can pick one up from Best Purchase or Amazon, the latter of which has more color options bachelor. These include Charcoal, Glacier White, (Production)Crimson and Twilight Blue.
Amazon Repeat review: Design
For 2022, Amazon ditched the cylindrical design of its older Echo smart speakers for a spherical shape that is not just more than interesting to look at, but allowed the company to cram in an additional tweeter.
Looks-wise, the quaternary-generation Echo is essentially a puffed-up Echo Dot. Only, where I wasn't as onboard with the spherical blueprint of the Echo Dot, I think it makes more sense with the full-size Echo, which is meant to be seen in a more prominent place.
When looking at the Echo from the front, yous run into its large fabric-covered grille, but as you plough it towards the back, a difficult plastic shell takes over.
Just over the height are iv buttons for volume, turning off the Echo's mic, and summoning Alexa. I merely wish that Amazon had added a clock to the front of the Echo, a la the Echo Dot with Clock. If you desire to brand a statement with your smart home speaker, you might likewise make as large a statement every bit possible — for case, the Acer Halo Google Assistant speaker has a display and fifty-fifty colored LED lights along the bottom.
The Amazon Echo is the most well-rounded smart speaker, and I'm not just talking about its looks.
To that end, I also wish that in that location was a way to control the colors of the lights on the Repeat. Now that they've been moved from the top to the bottom of the device, where they can reflect off a surface, it would exist fun to accept them alter colors to the beat of the music you lot're playing.
There is a third-party Night Light skill that causes the lights to pulse blue, but that's about information technology.
Measuring v.seven inches in diameter, the Repeat is larger than the Echo Dot and the Apple HomePod Mini, both of which are 3.9 inches in diameter. Despite having double the power requirement 30 Watts vs. 15 Watts) the Repeat has the same size power brick as the smaller Dot.
Amazon Echo review: Audio performance and features
Inside the Repeat is a 3-inch woofer that faces upwardly and two 0.eight-inch tweeters that face forwards. Like the Echo Studio, the Echo uses its array of six microphones to decide the acoustic properties of the room it's in, and adjust the sound output accordingly. It's a feature that's as well establish on the Sonos One and the Apple HomePod, merely non the HomePod mini.
I played a diversity of songs on the Echo, from JoJo Siwa'due south Boomerang (my child's request) to Van Halen and the Hamilton soundtrack. Overall, the Echo sounded very practiced, with deep resonant bass and a general warmth to the songs.
However, when I played the same tracks on a Sonos Ane, the Sonos' higher quality was immediately apparent. Vocals were non nearly as compressed, and everything but sounded crisper on the Sonos. That's not to say that the Echo was bad, merely if you lot prioritize audio higher up all else, information technology'south worth spending the bucks for the Sonos One.
A 3.5mm jack on the rear of the Echo acts as both a line in and line out, so you lot can non only connect the Echo to an external speaker, but you lot tin can also connect audio sources directly to the Echo, just like with the Echo Studio. Then, if you accept an old-school record collection, you can plug your turntable direct into the Echo and jam out to your LPs. (You will demand a pre-amp). I departure, though, is that in the Alexa app, you have to switch the Echo's aux from line-out to line-in; the Echo Studio can practice this automatically.
Also similar the Studio, you can employ the Echo equally an audio output for Fire TV devices, and so if you use one of those streaming sticks, this could be a skillful cheap alternative to purchasing a soundbar — peculiarly considering that you can pair 2 Echos for stereo sound. All the same, the Echo lacks a TOS/optical line in.
More: Google Nest Audio vs. Amazon Repeat (4th Gen)
Amazon Echo review: Alexa and smart home skills
Amazon has retired the Repeat Plus, its smart speaker/smart home hub, and placed the Zigbee radio in that device into the new Echo. Zigbee allows y'all to connect compatible low-power smart dwelling house devices—think door and window sensors and lightbulbs—directly to the Echo, rather than needing a carve up smart abode hub. I connected a Zigbee door sensor to the Repeat via the Alexa app in seconds.
Combined with Alexa Guard, this makes the Repeat an ad hoc home security system; you can plan your lights to plow on if a window sensor is opened, or have Alexa send you lot an alert if it hears your smoke detector or glass breaking. It'll still be upwards to you to call the law or burn down department, unless you also get a DIY home security system, a few of which work with Alexa Baby-sit.
I also call back that Alexa'due south routines are far more comprehensive than what yous can practice with Google Assistant and HomePod. With Alexa, you can utilise the state of numerous third-party smart domicile devices to command the behavior of other smart home gadgets. For instance, I tin create a routine to have a smart low-cal turn on, music starting time playing, and take Alexa say something to me when the aforementioned door sensor is opened.
Some other smart feature that will be enabled later this year is Amazon Sidewalk, a new long-range low-power, low-bandwidth protocol designed to create a more interconnected network throughout your entire neighborhood. And so, if yous forget your keys and Tile tracker at a friend's house two blocks over, yous'll be able to more easily find them. Sidewalk has been in virtually every Alexa smart speaker since the second-generation Echo, and is in a few Band smart lights, too. We're curious to see how information technology works in one case it goes alive.
A new low-ability way will reduce the Echo'south power consumption while information technology'south idle, with some caveats. The Echo won't enter low-ability way if yous linked a Spotify account to your Alexa account, if Alexa Guard is in Away mode, if there's an agile notification, if you take an external speaker plugged into the Echo, or if a smart home device is connected straight to the Echo via Bluetooth.
Another characteristic that'south just arrived on the fourth gen Echo is motion sensing. This works similar to motion sensing on the Echo Show, but while those devices rely on a camera, the Echo uses "inaudible ultrasound" to sense when there's someone nearby.
This characteristic tin be toggled on and off in the Alexa app, under the Motion Sensing option in your individual device'southward settings menu.
Once activated you'll be able to set up Alexa routines that activate or deactivate equally y'all motion around. Information technology's similar to routines that already rely on motion sensors, but without the middle human.
Amazon Echo review: Verdict
The Amazon Echo is the nigh well-rounded smart speaker, and I'm not simply talking almost its looks. Aye, the spherical shape of the 4th-generation Amazon Echo makes it visually interesting, but the smart home networking tech and Amazon's continual improvements to Alexa brand the 2022 Echo 1 of the smart speakers for less than $100.
Equally I said earlier, if yous desire the best-sounding smart speaker, the Sonos One is the fashion to become. But if y'all're looking for a smart speaker that will non just play tunes, but act equally a central smart habitation hub, the 4th-generation Repeat is an excellent choice.
- Adjacent: How to prepare the Amazon Echo
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/amazon-echo
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