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Hands on: Amazon Echo (2017) review

Amazons popular speaker is back!

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Amazon Echo is well known for redefining the speaker category and adding smart technology to a product that once served a single use. Amazon’s unexpected product which added a personal assistant called Alexa to a Bluetooth speaker helped make this the backbone of a smart household. They also brought to the market a feature called Adding Skills. This made it possible to customize it how you want and basically meant that no two Echos would be the same. The market also quickly saturated itself with Google and Apple trying to make their mark in the market. Amazon has now replied with the new Amazon Echo 2017.

Design of the Amazon Echo

At first glance, the Echo packs a beautiful design. Amazon has followed Google’s idea and made a smart speaker that more resembles furniture rather than an electric gadget. The homely looking device comes in six designs and a multitude of outer cover colours and the finishes. Nevertheless, the Echo is after all a speaker and it has been given an upgrade on the side of audio too. It now includes a dedicated tweeter and a 2.5 inch down firing woofer that greatly ups the quality from the last generation. In the event that you are looking more audio options, consider the Echo Plus. It offers Dolby processing for mesmerizing audio.

 

The company has focused on improving its microphone tech. The previous generation had a poor microphone that did not consistently detect the user’s voice but the problem seems to have been resolved with the new generation. There are also improvements to Alexa. The purpose has been to ensure more natural conversing, something akin to Google Assistant.

New features of the Amazon Echo

The Echo 2017 also brings something new to the table. It is called Routines. The basis of this feature is that it allows the user to group many interactions. For an instance, when you switch on the lighting in your room, you can have your morning news and schedule read out to you while a smart plug activates your coffee machine. There is no limit to how many interactions you want to group. Android users will realize this is a bit like IFTTT. Amazon also says that these improvements will be coming to new devices.

All in All, the Amazon Echo 2017 is a well designed and small smart speaker. It improves on every aspect to deliver a product of 2017’s standards without compromising anything that made it so popular. The smart speaker also costs cheap, starting at just $99. This makes it one of the cheapest fully fledged smart speakers.

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