26.1.2018

If this is your first Amazon Echo device, you won't be dissapointed. Read on to find out what it can do. But to start with, I'm going to compare it with my other Echo devices for those that are already familiar with them.SetupFirstly, setup is an absolute breeze. Normaly, with Echo or Echo Dot, you have to use a companion smartphone app (or wireless laptop), put the device in setup mode, connect to them from the app and then enter all the details of your home wifi system. They then reboot and you can then enter the settings page on alex.amazon.co.uk to change the region, change their timezone, and change other settings.Not so with the Spot. You power it on and you have a touchscreen and a surprisingly nice one at that!You select from a list of available wifi networks on the screen, you type your password in on the screen - which is also surprisingly accurate and easy, and then it connects. It automatically downloads any system updates, reboots, asks you to confirm who it thinks you are (it's automatically tied to your account at order unless you specified it to be a gift) and you are done. After that, you can interact with it using your voice, or you can use the touchscreen to change settings.It was all very easy.Looks and sizeLooks are subjective, I know. But I went for the white one and it looks stunning. It is larger than I expected and heavier too, but not too large that it looks out of place on the bedside. It looks no larger than a standard alarm clock, but it is probably twice as big as the Echo Dot. Same diameter approx, but 2 to 3 times taller.The contrasting white surround and black face look really nice. The white one came with a white plug and cable too. I assume the black one comes with a black cable and plug.In my opinion, it is the nicest of all the Echo devices.SoundSound impressed me. Obviously it isn't as loud as the full size Echo, but it is SIGNIFICANTLY louder than the Echo Dot. I didn't expect it to be able to produce the sound that it did. My elderly dad has and Echo and my elderly mum has an Echo Dot and my mum stuggles to hear the Dot, even when turned up full. It's never been an issue for me, but it is something to bear in mind if you have hearing issues. The Echo Spot is much louder than the Dot and I took it to my mums house to show her and she could hear it much better and is going to get one.As well as the volume being much better than the Dot, the sound quality is also much better. Again, it lacks the bass of the full size Echo, but for normal casual listening or as a bedside radio it is more than adequate. It would be fine by the bed, in the kitchen or on an office desk. But if your main use is audio, you can always pair it with bluetooth speakers or use the audio-out cable and connect it up to something else.ScreenI don't have the Echo Show as I don't have any other friends or family with an Echo Show so no one to video conference with and as it doesn't support Skype or Youtube, I figured there was no point. But I've been waiting for the Spot and had it on pre-order as I wanted an intelligent alarm clock. The screen was an extra. However, now I've seen it, I get it. If you ask Alexa the weather, she will tell you, but also display it on the screen. If you ask how high the Empire State Buidling is, she'll tell you, but also display a picture of it on the screen.All nice and simple so far. But if you ask for your "flash briefing", you don't get the audio news we all know and love from either the BBC or Sky, you get video new instead! You get a video briefing from the BBC with the newsreader reading it out to you just as if you were watching the TV. Ok, its a small screen, but as a bedside, kitchen or office desk device, it works perfectly!I really get the screen now. It has more uses too. If you wish, as well as the clock, it can cycle through clock, weather, messages, reminders, appointments, tending news items and more. All silently without disturbing you. So as you are falling asleep (or waking up), or cooking in the kitchen, you can see the weather, the latest news, your first meeting in the morning, all on the screen without asking Alexa. It's very useful. So useful that if Youtube and Skype come to the Echo Show, I will order one immediately.Alarm clockAs a bedside alarm clock, it is brilliant. You have a selection of analogue and digital faces and there is a "night mode" you can schedule to ensure the brightness turns down. You really don't need this though. My top tip would be to turn the brightness down to about 50-75% and then turn on the automatic mode. This then adhjusts to the ambient light. In a light room, it's nice and bright. Get in bed and turn the main light off and just use a bedside light and the Spot adjustst its brightness down. Turn all the lights off and go to sleep, and the Spot adjusts all the way down so that you can still see the clock, but it doesn't light the room up. Sort of like looking at an illuminous watch face.You can set alarms with your voice or with the Alexa app. You can say, for example, "Alexa, set an alarm for 6:45am every week day" and she does. You can have multiple alarms so you can have one for the weekend that is a different time. Or you can set a one off "Alexa, wake me up tomorrow at 6:30am" - that then won't repeat.When the alarm goes off, tapping on the screen snoozes it for 9 minutes. Swiping up on the screen cancels that current alarm. You won't find that documented anywhere, so make a note! :)AlexaSo, if you've never had an Echo, what can Alexa do?Well you can ask her questions. Ask her to tell you a joke. You can control smart home tech like lights, TV's, some fridges. You can order things from Amazon.You can add things to your "to do" list. Set reminders (I use those all the time). I have mine interfaced to my work Outlook calender via Office 365 so I can ask "Alexa, what is my next meeting" and she will tell me where I should be and with whom I'm meeting.You can have her read the news. Tell you the weather. Tell you the traffic on your normal commute. You can play hundreds of thousands of free songs from Amazon Prime Music and even more with a subscription. You can play thousands of internet radio stations.You can have her read books aloud with an Audible subscription. You can call and message other people with Echo devices. If you have multiple ones in your house, you can "drop in" on the others and call them like an intercom. You can even play Amazon Prime movies on the tiny screen.There are also some 15,000 skills you can install. A skill is a third-party app developed by someone else. Think like installing something from the app store. There are skills for everything like Tube times, tide tables, games. Far to many to go in to.Anyway, I like my range of Echo devices. But the Spot takes top place. I would get rid of the others and just have 3 Spots in the house if money allowed!Note: You can turn the camera off if you are concerned. I'm not...Hope that helps. Any questions, feel free to ask...

5.2.2018

I bought this to replace my Echo Dot which I had in the bedroom connected to an old Roberts DAB clock radio. I used the Roberts as a daily radio alarm and used the Dot - via bluetooth- for audio books and other Alexa stuff. Being able to have one device for both really appealed and so the Spot was high on my list when it was announced. I've had it for a few weeks now so how does it stack up?Hardware: this feels likes a premium product, way better than the plasticy feel of the Dot. It's quite weighty, which adds to the premium feel, and has a non slip pad on the bottom to stop it moving about. It's quite compact, no bigger than a standard clock radio,so fits on a bedside easily.Screen: is nice and sharp and bright enough to see from a distance and looks great as a clock.The ambient senior ensures that the screen adjusts itself depending on the external light; there is also a night mode so that it does not disturb sleep - this was a biggie for me as any bright light can affect my sleep and I'm happy to say this is just fine, it's bright enough to see the time if you wake up at night, but muted enough to not affect sleep at all. You can auto set the night mode to come on at anytime, or you can ask Alexa to set it at anytime. The touch interface on the screen works fine and seems quite quick and responsive.Camera: been a lot of noise about the privacy concerns - you can deactivate it very easily which is what I have done. Don't suggest you cover it with tape as this will render the ambient light sensor useless.Speaker: it's almost 3 times the size of the Dot speaker and the sound is way better as a result. Whilst it won't have the presence of the full size Echo, it's more than good enough for a bedside, has decent bass and is just as good as the DAB clock radio it replaced.Setup: pretty quick and simple - but not the same as setting up a Dot which is done via the App. The only problem I encountered was my home Wifi would not connect at first - unlike the Dot I had to adjust the firewall to let it through, but then all was fine. The touch screen menus are easy to navigate and pretty intuitive in terms of knowing how set things like brightness etc.Clock: is good, you can select from a decent range of analogue and digital faces or you can upload an image of your own via the Alexa app. The latter is a bit clunky to use - the cropping feature does not exactly match what you actually end up with on the clock and the image is quite dark in the background and hard to see, but it's a nice feature that will no doubt improve. The downside is that you cannot customise the clock face - for example I'd like to have the date and weather on my clock face but this is not possible. That said the Clock face will rotate, like a slideshow, to show weather and calendar dates plus any to do lists, but this is not really useful and you can set it to only do this once. It also shows a 'Things to Try' screen to encourage you use Alexa - this would be useful if you were new to Alexa but really is irritating for those that know what they are doing; so far you can't deactivate it I really hope that will change.Alarms: you can use the App or Alexa to set a daily or one off alarm; if you don't select music it will use one of the standard tones (you can change the default one via the App), but you can also ask Alexa to set an alarm to music or to a radio station (note you can only do this via voice command, there does not seem to be an option to do this via the app). Music alarms work fine, but radio can be a bit hit and miss. Alexa sometimes doesn't recognise some stations; but BBC and other well known UK stations seem to be fine. When the alarm goes off you get the option to swipe up on the screen to dismiss it - or you can simply touch the screen to snooze (or you can ask Alexa). If left the alarm will switch off after an hour. Having used this as a radio alarm for for a few months it's really good.News: as per the Dot, you can ask the Spot to play the news - the main difference is if you use the BBC as one of your news preferences you get a video from the BBC TV studio. This is nice but a tad unnecessary as the screen is quite small to view and the news headlines are shorter than the normal radio headlines, so it would be better if it was optional. Sky news is unchanged.Alexa: works perfectly for everything as it did on the Dot; I use the Spot to play audiobooks at night, setting a sleep timer so I can doze off - I love this feature, and so easy to do without fiddling with any buttons. Likewise setting ad hoc alarms or even changing existing alarms is so simple, as is setting a timer which will show the timer countdown on the clock screen.Conclusion: I expect that many people will buy this as a smart alarm clock and the Spot is really good for this purpose. But I can see this being useful in the kitchen too - for example using Recipedia, shows you step by step instructions on the screen as well as voice, which is quite nifty. You can also link the Spot to your main speaker by Bluetooth or Aux cable and the screen will show you what's playing and even show you the lyrics if you are so inclined.I love this gadget and am very glad I bought it. If you're looking for the ultimate smart alarm clock with all of the added benefits that Alexa brings then you cannot go wrong with the Spot.

25.2.2018

UPDATE!!! My Spot is now suffering with the screen flicker issue that many people are reporting at the moment. My unit is around one and a half years old now and is suffering the same fate as many people are reporting. I have not contacted Amazon about this yet but after the surge of complaints I am seeing on the net I realise that I am not alone. Today on the BBC news it has finally made the news and people are being advised that although the 1 year warranty is up, UK trading standards claim that within two years (actually up to six) you can complain that the unit was inherently faulty by design or manufacture and get a new one.Amazon appear to be offering a 15% discount on a new one to people that have this issue which is a terrible response from a company I thought took a pride in their customer services. I will update this review again when I have resolved my issue with them and hopefully they will acknowledge that the unit was not fit for purpose and replace those that are faulty.UPDATE 2. Amazon are sending me a replacement free of charge. It's lists the replacement as a "Refurbished unit" which I suppose is okay although I now worry whether the refurbished unit is in fact one of the ones doomed to failure. Time will tell I suppose. At least they've now acknowledged their responsibilities rather than offering a miserly 15% discount on a new one.First off. I really like this device but I’m giving it three stars for one reason alone. Why why why would you put a camera in a device that is most likely going to end up in a bedroom?If there was no camera (yes you can defeat it in menu which is not enough for me) and covering it wouldn’t affect your light sensor (yet to try this) then I’d be leaning on to a five star review.The screen as a bedside clock is great. I’d like to see them expand the options for both analogue and digital faces but there’s enough there to find something to like. I have two echo dots and the 2nd gen echo (in the kitchen). I have smart lighting and tp-link wall switches as well as a growing amount of LightwaveRF dimmers for the ceiling lights. The heating system will be upgraded to the Drayton Wiser system come next winter and the thought that this little loveable bed side clock can control all of those items with voice commands is fantastic.The sound performance is closer to the new echo than it is to the dot which is a good thing. It’s perfectly good for playing music on but forget the video as the screen is just too small.I bought the stand which is an eye watering extra £20 (come on Amazon) but in my view it’s kind of essential to tune the direction of the screen for your given situation. I’d hold off on the stand to see if you feel you need it but you’ll probably end up wanting one.All in all, this is the best echo device i’ve so far bought and probably the best Amazon have created. Just get rid of that spooky camera and subsequently drop the price please!!

25.7.2019

I've only had the Echo Spot for a couple of days so this review may be a little premature, but initial thoughts.SET UP- need to be aware all done on-screen on the device itself, not via the Alexa App which doesn't feature it in the list of available devices. This may be obvious given it has a screen, but it seems to be one of the most asked questions on google as to why it doesn't appear there, so let's get that out of the way to start with. One minor point - enter wifi code and wait for it to do something...it doesn't. Might be my stupidity, but it took me a few minutes to figure out that you had to touch screen and scroll down to click on the accept/ next button. A minor thing,

13.3.2018

I feel like Catweazle, the 11th century timetravelling wizard who ends up in 1969 and discovers the sorcery of the "telling bone", and "electrickery". This Echo Spot is just incredible. It feels like something supernatural to me, something that just shouldn't be possible. But it is possible.I'm glad I got mine the other day before the price went up today. It set up perfectly, a complete breeze. I bought bluetooth earphones and a bluetooth speaker and both set up so easily. I also changed the wake word from Alexa to Echo, thinking the two syllables would be easier to pronounce and I rarely fail to wake her up first time. I have to say, it forces you to consider carefully what you ask of her and also to speak properly and clearly.

11.1.2019

Echo Spot is hands down the best internet radio out there! I don't even look at the Pure Elan series and others as I did... now it is Alexa all the way!In a single swoop it replaces and outclasses all those buttony and fiddly hybrid radio with WIFI connection. They promise to allow you to search and memorise online radios, but all they do is drown you in menus and tiny keyboards. With Echo Spot you just ask and via TuneIn it will find the station you were looking for in a a heartbeat. SO MUCH EASIER.It displays the station on the screen, which is great if you are not sure it is the right one you wanted.If the speaker is not loud enough you can seamlessly pairs with any bluetooth speaker you have in the house or connect to wired speakers,

23.2.2018

This was my very first product on the smart voice controlled arena. Having read several reviews on the different product available I opted for the Echo Spot.I must say firstly that the main feature I was considering when researching was the alarm clock function.I have had radio controlled clocks for years and always looked for ones that had extra features thrown in like temperature, moon phases etc.The Echo Spot is everything I always wanted and more.The display is clear and readable under any light. Setting it up is a breeze. Alexa is responsive and can hear me even through noise from another room; I must add that I have a non British accent and that is no issue for her.There are thousands

3.1.2019

Well I wanted because it has a screen but i didnt want the large model or need a powerful screen, It hooks up with my IOS phone calendar perfectly as long as you have two factor authentication switched on on your IOS login. Well it tells me the calendar, i can set alarms, to do lists shopping lists, watch movies, news listen to music and more importantly my extensive audible library that i have, at the moment i cant fins any fault with it really, some people worry about the camera and privacy if so you can buy a little sliding door for it or just a black piece of tape, I use it to look in on my old Dalmatian to make sure she is ok if were out for a while. I dont use it in the bedroom,

26.1.2018

I already own an Amazon Echo 2nd generation which I love, I subscribe to Amazon’s Unlimited Music, which gives me over 40 million songs, its amazing what obscure songs it can find.After having the Echo as a family we thought it would be good to have one in the Kitchen and also my 14 year old was keen to own one, when I spotted the Spot, two for under £200 I thought I’d opt for them.You receive and very stylish Echo, its not as big as the one I have in height, its I guess a bit cube shaped. You have a round screen on the front which is a touch screen, It was s a very attractive thing for my wife who loves baking, and thought see could not only ask Alexa for recipes but also watch video’s on Prime,

9.10.2018

This is my first Alexa/Echo product.I primarily bought this as a Smart Alarm Clock but after using it for a week i have fallen in love with Alexa's capabilities!This is how i use my Echo Spot daily:I wake up to the alarm i set on my Echo Spot the previous night and wish Alexa "Good Morning". She is programmed to turn a few lights on around the house. I then ask her "what's my flash briefing?", she then tells me some headlines from the news organisations that i chose (BBC, Sky Sports, etc.). Throughout the day i tell Alexa to play me different genres of song, complimenting whatever i am doing at the time. For example when i go to the shower i ask her to play "90's Rap" and she plays songs from a playlist on Amazon Music (you can tell her to play music from Spotify too),

30.12.2018

I live in a communication blackspot. Until recently mobile phone signals were virtually non-existent, satellite is the only way to get decent TV reception, but as for radio, well, it was difficult. Very difficult. So, so difficult.I love the radio. I listen more than I watch TV, but in order to listen I had to either boot up my PC or put the TV on and listen via Sky. Now, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, not that I cook or anything, it's just a room where I feel comfortable. The TV is in the sitting room, the PC is in my bedroom, so not a happy bunny really.Then I discovered Echo Dots. Bought one, put it in the kitchen and it was like all my birthdays had come at once. Unlimited radio,

7.2.2018

So far, so much love, with a tiny suggestion - hopefully, the Amazon developers read these reviews.Easy peasy set up - I was able to get it up and running and customized in less than 20 minutes - score!!!Paired my Bluetooth Thonet and Vander speakers (that also live with my bedroom TV) flawlessly. Figured out how to set recurring and different alarms for weekdays and weekends (after you set the 'single alarm' go to the Alexa app under alarms and reminders - you have far more control through the app to easily change that single alarm into a recurring alarm with lots of options). Got a photo uploaded to make a custom clock face (used my photo cloud storage at Prime). Played some Prime music.

2.2.2018

I already have two echo dots, so I knew how Alexa worked before buying this. I needed a clock on my bedside table and I was sharing a dot between two rooms (by shouting) so this was an ideal solution.The screen is great. Didn't realise it was touchscreen before I bought it - glad it was, but a nice touch all the same. It's ideal for a clock and notifications like weather updates. I haven't tried it with anything else though because I think it's too small. You can barely see the settings list on it so I'm not sure how you'd ever follow a recipe with it like one photo floating around seems to suggest.I'd recommend buying this if you're looking for a smart bedroom clock - frankly,

24.11.2018

I bought a Spot while it was slightly discounted to replace my current big display alarm clock and DAB radio. The system is very easy to set up, if you have an amazon account it is particularly effortless in getting your details so it can access Prime etc. The sound quality is decent for Prime and radio, I have found adding a bluetooth speaker helps as I like to have the Spot on the other side of the room so I can see the display time when I wake up. With a little tweaking it is fairly straightforward to personalise the Spot to meet your preferences such as picking the hours it goes into night mode,

30.1.2018

Superb product and welcome addition to the Echo family, having a few Echo's, Dots and (now redundant Dash's) the Spot works very nicely. The speaker sounds much better than the Dot, which struggles for full music range coverage. There is more mid range and bass than the Dot making it a wamer sound. I considered the Echo show but with voice driven technology being a huge benefit as part of the movement to the eventual disappearing interface I thought the show was simply a step backwards as it's just a tablet offering in a different guise.Happily recomend the Spot...Pros-A screen that you can personlise with a photo or use one of the ~20 default display optionsDaily,

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