The Amazon Echo Spot is the latest voice-assisted smart home hub. You can use your voice to control home automation through Alexa. It has a great-looking touchscreen that sets its price point above the Echo Dot, but improves its ease of functionality. The screen not only displays the time and temperature, it can also display video, make voice and video calls with other Echo devices, play music and games, answer questions, set timers and alarms, and more. Of course the Echo Spot controls your smart home and smart phone devices as well.
The Amazon Echo Spot comes in white and black, and the 480 pixels-wide screen has 16 faces to choose from. Besides analog and digital designs, you can also customize the display with your own photos. You access to Amazon Prime video content, album art, to-do and shopping lists, and weather. The microphone has far-field capability and the speaker is improved from the Amazon Echo Dot for casual music listening. You can also link it to a larger speaker by cable or bluetooth for a higher quality sound.
Though video calls are possible and the display image is very clear, the size of the screen may be limiting for some. On the camera front, you can disable the camera and the microphone independently as needed. There are some privacy concerns as other Spot users can “drop-in” on you even if you haven’t answered their call. The solution is to disable the camera, particularly if you have the device in your bedroom. You don’t want to cover up the camera completely, as it regulates the display’s auto-brightness.
Apart from these privacy issues, the Amazon Echo Spot is a great choice for a bedside alarm. You can set alarms with your voice, ask Alexa to wake you up to a specific song or playlist, and you can snooze the alarm with your voice in the morning or you just silently dismiss it by touching the screen. It’s a manageable size for a night table, and can replace the need for an Echo Dot and alarm clock in your room.
Together with the ability to you the Amazon Echo Spot to control other smart home features such as lights, locks, and sensors, this is a great choice for you!
