Amazon Echo Spot (2024) review

Without reinventing the wheel (or sphere, in this case), the “new” Echo Spot is similar to the previous gen which had a completely circular screen, but the screen is now split. So just the top half gets a 2.83in smart display while the bottom has a tiny 1.73in speaker covered in mesh fabric. The compact dimensions and affable shape allows it to be placed virtually anywhere without looking out of place or offensive, but its primary use case will still be as a bedside buddy. Alarm duties, late night news recap, background music while getting ready for work and updates on your Amazon Prime deliveries of the day, it does all that you’d expect from an Echo device.

Amazon has eschewed some big  but eventually rarely used features from the earlier Spot. Like a built-in camera and a 3.5mm audio jack. These are supplanted with more meaningful features like Adaptive Listening and Preferred Speaking Rate, both designed to allow users to either control their own pace of speaking, or Alexa’s speed of speech. Accessibility or otherwise, it’s a feature that finally allows everyone to get enough time to ask or listen without feeling left out.

The primary source of information and entertainment will be Amazon services like Amazon Music and Alexa skills, but you can connect a Bluetooth device to it to extend its capabilities. Setting it up is easier than ever, thanks to support for Matter and Mesh, all you need is the Alexa app on your phone and follow the simple instructions. Eight different clock faces and six theme colours are available on the app to choose from and they’re mostly variations of a digital clock face except a lone analog option which is as basic as it gets.

With smarts like an ultrasound motion detector, it can go into sleep mode automatically when the room is empty and spring to life when movement is detected. Though there is no camera on board, the microphone is handily controlled by a dedicated button on the top of the Spot. Flanked by volume up/down buttons, it manages to appeal to even the most apprehensive adopters of tech.

Its 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage might not seem like much, but for all the tasks it’s designed to do, the Echo Spot is pretty prompt. Being polite to Alexa and waking it up with a “good morning” or “hello” results in some cool animations set against spoken affirmations. Life coach much? Of course, it’ll be most often used as an alarm clock and as such, it supports tap-to-snooze where the entire top panel functions like a snooze button so you don’t have to open your drooly mouth to bark a command. Or turn the screen towards your half-baked noggin and hunt for the tiny snooze/stop icons. Across the board though, animations seem a lot more lively than previous generations and adds a playfulness to the Echo Spot that’s missing from other variants. Colour options would be nice to add more personality but at launch, blue and black will be your only options.

Unfortunately, the screen is only used to show native animations and it won’t let you view your remote door camera or drop in on a video call with another Echo Show around the house. But, you can make audio calls via the Drop-in feature and even hook up another Echo Spot for stereo music listening. This brings us to the sound quality, which honestly isn’t the reason why anyone should buy one of these. The 1.7in driver obviously has physical limitations and while it can play loud enough to be heard across a room, don’t expect to enjoy any drum or bass solos on this. It’s purely a functional transducer that is audible and intelligible. Job done.

Asking for YouTube still feels like blasphemy on an Echo device and even more so when your screen real estate is less than three inches. The Echo Spot is a great little task manager, joke teller, visual notification and communication device for anyone looking to add a little spice to their bedside manners. It feels a tad bit expensive for a formula that has largely been unchanged for a decade, but in terms of deciphering the multitude of Indian accents and delivering accurate results almost nine times out of ten, there is nothing more reliable than an Echo with Alexa.