Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Gen) - Review

(Image: © Apple)

What time is it? Alexa Time! Amazon's smart fourth-generation speaker Echo Dot With Clock picks up an attractive, round new Echo Dot and puts the digital clock in front for $ 59.99. You will still need a larger $ 99.99 Echo speaker with sound that fills the room, but if you are looking for a dot that will use it as a kitchen timer or bedroom alarm clock, this is a must find. Finally, Echo Dot With Clock receives our Editors Choice Award for inexpensive smart speakers due to its simple functionality and functionality.

New Look

Like the $ 49.99 fourth-generation Echo Dot, the Dot With Clock is a 3.9-inch space available in blue or white (standard model, under the clock is also dark gray). The top of the orb has volume up, volume down, action, and microphone mute buttons, and a soft blue glow at the bottom as it listens. A 3.5mm power connector and audio output sits at the back of the speaker.

An additional feature here is in addition to the standard Echo Dot standard white LED clock, which can also display alarms, outdoor temperature, and any active timers. When you hit the top of the Dot, it will snooze your alarm. You can tell Alexa to turn off the clock or turn it off when it's near your bed and you like to sleep in complete darkness. The simple act of adding a watch to the speaker makes it look very practical, and is easily worth adding $ 10.

Alexa

Like the Echo speaker, Echo Dot With Clock uses Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. Just say, "Alexa," and give the command, and the speaker will do his best to keep you quiet. Alexa can answer common questions, manage smart home devices, make calls, make calls on other Alexa devices, and play music from supported streaming services including Amazon Music, Apple Music, HeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, and TuneIn. Any other music source will need to be streamed via Bluetooth directly from your phone or other device.

Alexa is an active voice assistant, with more third-party skills than the competition, but its syntax can be a bit more robust. You may find yourself needing to use straightforward language to get Alexa doing what you want, unlike Google Assistant (for Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers), which chatter a bit.

Audio performance

As a base model Dot, this is mainly a cosmetic change from last year's model. The sound power of the Dot With Clock is the same, and it still has the same 1.6-inch driver - perfect for bed use, but not something you would want as a main music speaker in your living room. You can attach a better speaker with a 3.5mm removable jack, of course.

Echo Dot With Clock has the same audio capabilities in the standard Echo Dot, so you can refer to that review to get deeper into its sound quality. In fact, this is a small speaker with very little power and there is probably no bus response you can talk about. It is very limited in high and medium altitudes, with the availability of low frequency to lead. The sound quality is better than what you get from a standard clock, but it is not enough to fill a room with full noise. Works well on podcasts, though.

A Good Time to Improve?

Echo Dot With Clock remains our beloved inexpensive speaker. Amazon's small Echo Flex has an additional $ 15 clock attachment, but this device doesn't look like a good bedside watch; looks like a plug-in air freshener. Amazon also has a $ 89.99 Echo Show 5 if you want a rich clock experience with a fully functional video screen (and we’ve seen it sell for very little money). But Echo Dot and Echo Dot With Clock are excellent, inexpensive ways to access Amazon's Amazon voice for information and smart home control, even if they're not ready to be used as key music speakers. In both cases, Echo Dot With Clock gets Editors' Choice nod because the easy-to-use feature of its display is worth an additional $ 10.