Amazon Echo Spot (2024) review

Amazon’s original Echo Spot had most of the functionality of its Echo Show smart displays. The 2024 Echo Spot ($79.99) is the successor to the discontinued Echo Dot with Clock. The smart speaker offers full Alexa voice functionality, displays helpful information like the time and weather on a small screen, and even supports touch controls for some smart home devices. It also offers reasonable audio quality for its size, although it lacks a camera and video playback capabilities. If you want a simple smartwatch for your bedside or desk, the Echo Spot is still worth buying, though most people are better off with the $89.99 Echo Show 5 for a full-on smart display or the $99.99 4th-gen Echo for the more powerful. Smart speaker.

Design: Half egg with half screen

With an oblong profile that looks like an egg cut in half widthwise, the Echo Spot closely resembles the $39.99 Echo Pop. It’s slightly larger than the Pop (3.6 by 3.9 by 3.3 inches) at 4.4 by 4.5 by 4.1 inches (HWD) overall. The Spot is available in Black or Glacier White like the Pop, though it trades the Pop’s Lavender Bloom and Midnight Teal options for an Ocean Blue finish (the version pictured in this review).

A speaker grill at the bottom and a semicircular glossy black panel at the top divide the upwardly angled front surface. The flat base has a rubber foot that keeps the device stable on a table or nightstand, while the back has a single recessed port for the included 15W power adapter. A $29.99 charging stand is available in Charcoal or Glacier White; It has two USB-C ports and one USB-A port for charging other devices. Rounding out the design is a far-field microphone, along with volume up, volume down and mute buttons at the top.

On the audio front, the Echo Spot has a 1.73-inch forward-firing mono driver. It’s about the same size as the $49.99 Echo Dot. For reference, the standard Echo has a more advanced setup with a 3-inch woofer and dual 0.8-inch front-firing tweeters.

For connectivity and streaming, the Spot offers dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (Amazon doesn’t specify versions or available codecs). It also supports the Amazon Sidewalk Shared Network to extend the functionality of Alexa devices, Ring cameras, and other Amazon products and services, though I generally recommend disabling this feature for security reasons. The Spot can act as a Wi-Fi hub for Matter devices, but it can’t act as an Ero Wi-Fi mesh node like the Echo Dot and Echo Pop.

Setting up the Echo Spot is easy with the Alexa app (available for Android and iOS). When you plug in the device, a QR code appears on its screen that you can scan with your phone Doing so prompts the Alexa app to connect the Spot to your Wi-Fi network and link it to your Amazon account. After that, the Echo Spot will appear in your list of devices along with other Echo or Alexa-compatible smart home products in your home.

Demonstration: Simple, but effective

Although the Echo Spot’s color touch screen is distinctive, it doesn’t make the Spot a smart display. The panel disappears against the glossy black surface on the front to give the illusion that the entire half-circle panel is a screen, but only a 2.83-inch square is actually usable. It’s bright and vivid enough that text and icons are visible from several feet away in both dark and light environments, though visibility drops as you move to the side. The modest resolution of 320 by 240 pixels is overwhelming.

As mentioned, the display on the Spot is an evolution of the Echo Dot with Clock rather than the original Echo Spot. Amazon does not intend for you to use Spot for visual communications or content; It doesn’t have a camera or support any kind of video playback. But it shows more information than the Echo Dot with the watch and supports basic touch controls. I find the ability to see the time and weather at a glance, tell what music is playing, and make simple adjustments to smart devices very convenient.

Smart features: Alexa is mostly for voice

As an Echo device, the Spot is built around Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. Say, “Alexa,” follow a command, and Spot will respond. (You can choose “Amazon,” “Computer,” “Echo,” or “Ziggy” as the wake word).

The most obvious use for a smart speaker is asking Alexa to play music. It works with Amazon Music and Audible, along with other music streaming services like Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify and Tidal. You must link your streaming service account through the Alexa app for this function to work. Album art appears as a small thumbnail in the middle of the screen when music is playing, with playback controls below it.

You can ask Alexa for a wide range of requests, such as news and weather reports, sports scores, currency and stock prices, and unit conversions. Very limited supporting information appears on the Spot’s screen, though you’ll get icons and temperature if you want to know the weather or a plain number value if you ask how much a foreign currency is worth. Otherwise, Alexa’s responses are exclusively voice.

Alexa supports direct spot voice calls with phone numbers in North America and the UK via Skype and the Alexa Drop In service. But without a camera, you can’t make video calls through Zoom or other services like Smart Display.

If you have Alexa-compatible smart home devices, you can connect them through the Alexa app and control them through Spot. Alexa works with most major brands of smart lights, smart plugs, smart locks and smart thermostats. You can’t access the home security camera feed though; As mentioned, Spot does not support video playback.

All the features I tried worked very well in the tests. Whether I asked Alexa to adjust the lights in my apartment, call a phone number, give me a weather report, convert yen to US dollars, or play music, I got the right response right away. A brightness slider for the smart bulb appears on the screen when I toggle the lights, the temperature and the converted yen value appear when I ask them.

Sound Quality: Decent audio with little bass

Smaller speakers generally don’t deliver much bass, and Echo Spot is no different. Because of the front-facing drivers, you’ll get the best audio experience if you’re sitting directly in front of it.

Our bass test track features kick drum hits and bass synth notes, The Knife’s “Silent Shoot,” poppy sound and no thump. They begin to distort at maximum volume levels. The Echo Dot performs similarly here, although the standard Echo captures the lows more fully.

Yes’ “Roundabout” sounds great in spots. Early acoustic guitar notes get a good sense of low-mid resonance, while some treble clarity is present to bring out the string texture. Bass, hi-hats, guitars and vocals all stand out in this busy mix and benefit from powerful detail as the track kicks into full swing. The highs sink a bit, however, which pushes the guitar strums behind the bass and vocals.

If you want the best audio quality, you should stream from your phone over Wi-Fi through Alexa instead of Bluetooth. Music I streamed from my iPhone in testing seemed noticeably less detailed and hollow than over Wi-Fi.

Verdict: A quality smart speaker with a small screen

The 2024 Amazon Echo Spot leaves out some smart display features from its predecessor, but it works well as a smart speaker. It sounds just as good as the Echo Dot, has a more useful display than the Echo Dot with the Clock, offers basic smart home controls, and responds reliably to Alexa commands. Overall, if you just want a modern, Amazon-centric take on a clock radio, this is a worthwhile purchase for a desk or nightstand. Just don’t forget that you can get the full smart display experience from the Echo Show 5 or better audio from standard Echo speakers for a little more money.