Like previous generations, it's ideal as a personal-listening device. My daughter bopped around the room as Siwa’s effervescent voice rose above the thumpy bass line.Īfter my daughter went to bed, I spent the evening listening to other genres of music, and found the Echo Dot performed well for its size. In no time at all, my toddler was shouting “Lexa, JoJo Siwa Boomerang!” and to my chagrin, the Echo Dot responded by playing the teen pop star’s songs in all their bubbly glory.

For more information, check out our story Why is Alexa flashing? Like other Alexa speakers, the LEDs will change color based on the status of the speaker or your Alexa account. It’s like ground effects for your smart speaker. So now, when you summon Alexa, the glow from the LEDs reflects off the surface of whatever the Dot is resting on, which is cool. The other major difference between the 4th-generation Echo Dot and previous models is that the ring of LEDs is now on the bottom, rather than the top edge. For me, though, the Echo Dot represents a device that’s meant to blend into the background until it’s needed, and the puck shape of older models was better suited to that. While I think that’s a logical reason to change the look of the Echo and the Echo Dot with Clock, I’m not sure if it makes as much sense with the regular Echo Dot. During its launch event, Amazon said that part of the reason for the redesign of the Echo Dot and the Echo were a result of owners placing their smart speakers in more prominent places. Now that I have the Echo Dot in hand, I’m not as enamored with it.

Alexa echo dot