If you think the Echo Spot is a new invention from Amazon, think again! First introduced by Amazon way back in 2018, this poor little guy has gone years without an update or a refresh. Until now. Meet the 2024 Amazon Echo Spot. I had a chance to spend several weeks with the new version, so I’ll tell you what’s been updated, what this device is designed for, what it can and can’t do, then I’ll round up the pros and the cons and let you know if I think you might be good for.
Many Amazon Echo products went through all sorts of evolutions every generation with the rare exception of the Echo Spot and a few other products. I found the Echo Spot to be a cool little smart assistant when I reviewed it back in 2018 as its small display had more uses than I thought. After more than six years without a successor, Amazon took the Internet by surprise with a new Echo Spot, and it is… different. But is it any good? Let’s spot the differences!
Amazon Echo Spot
Summary
How much you’re going to enjoy the new 2024 Amazon Echo Spot will depend on how you intend to use it. If it’s going to be your primary Echo device with screen, you may find it mildly disappointing. But if you intend to use it either as a bedside alarm clock, or small space voice assistant, the new echo spot is a capable and handy device.
Pros
- Small size
- Voice Assistant
- Capable and handy
- All the power of full size Echo
- Adaptive brightness
- Night Mode
- Easy alarm setting
- Lots of sound choices
- Decent audio quality
- Affordable price
Cons
- App was buggy
- Screen size may limit usefulness
- Lack of personalization
What is Amazon Echo Spot?
Amazon’s new Echo Spot is a mashup of several popular small-size Amazon devices: the original Echo Spot, Echo Dot and the new Echo Pop resulting in a smart alarm clock-speaker-screen hybrid. Where the original had a small speaker across the face, the 2024 version uses a 2.83-inch screen on only the top portion of the device, which is just enough to show the time or one of the other small widgets the Echo Spot supports. The bottom half is reserved for the speaker, a reminder this Echo Spot can competently play your favorite music tracks and podcasts, or interact with your voice commands.
Although Amazon didn’t entirely cover the Echo Spot’s space with screen, the unit itself is larger than both the original Echo Spot and the Echo Pop. The top of the Echo Spot features the familiar array of volume controls and “mic off” button.
Watch my full video review of Echo Spot
Who’s it for?
After spending a few weeks with this device, it’s clear to me this is meant to replace something like the echo dot with clock as your new bedside alarm. It can also be useful in small spaces like bathrooms or kitchens as a supplemental speaker or digital assistant. This device is not for watching any kind of video content and is actually going to be better for those who are inclined to use voice control above all else.
Setup Process
The new Echo Spot is a bit easier to set up than an ordinary Echo speaker because the display will show you a QR code that your phone can scan. The code will take you directly to the Alexa app where it will search for the device and add it to the network. No more hotspot selection and typing your router’s password on the old Echo Spot’s tiny keyboard! Once connected, the Echo Spot will download the latest update and then let you choose a clock face.
Of course if you already have any Echo/Amazon devices in the house and are logged into your Amazon account, once you open the Alexa app, the speaker will pop right up on the screen and essentially set itself up. That’s what happened for me and I was ready to go in under two minutes.
Customizable Clock Faces… kinda
The Echo Spot offers six different clock faces, which are far fewer than the 16 faces available on the older Echo Spot. You can change the color of the clock face resulting to a few more combinations but you cannot set a background photo which is an sad omission for those hoping to really personalize their Echo Spot.
While Amazon could theoretically add this feature in a future update, I wouldn’t count on it because if you look closely at the display, you’ll notice that it is actually rectangular. The 240 by 320-pixel resolution may not be enough for displaying photos and will just expose the thick bezels. With Amazon’s minimalistic approach to showing the time and other widgets, you won’t ever notice the bezels from a reasonable distance which is nice. Analog fans have the option of an analog clock face, but let’s face it, analog clock faces look far better on a circular display.
To change the clock face and display, you should be able to just open the Alexa app and choose your Echo spot from your devices list. Then you want to click on the gear to get to your settings, and look for Clock and theme in the list. Clock face will be the top option. But for me, the app didn’t work at all to change or update any of the settings.
To change the clock face I had to go directly to the spot itself, swipe down from the top to get to the settings, then I chose Clock and theme then adjusted the clock face. Same thing happened when I tried to change the colour scheme. It wouldn’t do anything inside the app so I was able to do it on the device instead.
It’s here all note that the options for customization are extremely limited, and I wouldn’t really refer to it as customization at all. You can make a few small minor tweaks but you’re really not going to get an incredibly personalized device here. I hope Amazon ends up adding more options in the future.
Using it as an Alarm Clock
If you want to use this device as an alarm clock, you may be confused about how to set the alarm. The easiest thing to do is to just ask Alexa. You can ask it to set a weekday alarm, or different alarms on each day.
There’s about half a dozen simple alarm sounds accessible on the device, or about 20+ choices inside the Alexa app.
Interface and Widgets
The Echo Spot’s interface is all about simplicity. The default clock face shows you only the time… unless you choose the one option that will also show the date and weather.
To get the most from your speaker you’ll want to use your voice commands..
Asking for the weather will treat you with a cool animation showing the weather information. You won’t get the same visuals you would normally get with an Amazon Echo Show 10, but given the product’s size, you’ll likely find the minimalistic interface rather refreshing.
Night mode
If you are going to use this device as a bedside alarm clock, you’ll want to enable night mode and adaptive brightness.
With the Night mode activated, the Echo Spot darkens the screen, displaying just the time in red. It certainly gives off that classic RCA alarm clock vibe! The Alexa app offers the option to schedule the start and end times of the Night mode, so you don’t have to manually toggle it.
Adaptive brightness will automatically adjust screen brightness based on the available light; meaning if it’s in a really sunny room the screen will appear brighter, and if it’s darker, it will seem dimmer.
Music play
You can bring up the other Echo Spot widgets using voice commands. For instance, telling the Echo Spot to play a music track from Spotify or other supported streaming service will load up the album art along with a cool playing animation and a ticker showing the track’s title. Tapping the screen will bring up the playback controls.
If you prefer, you can link to the Spot using Bluetooth and stream music from your phone too.
Audio Quality
Now is a great time to touch on the sound quality.
Audio quality is a big step up over the old Echo Spot model thanks to some improvements in the speaker. While it’s still just a 1.73-inch speaker beneath the bottom speaker grille, the Alexa voice sounds clear and loud enough and it’s easy to hear and understand. When listening to music, vocals sound very clear, and the overall sound is actually quite good for a speaker of this size and capabilities. The Spot isn’t going to win any awards for audio Fidelity, but it’s still a capable speaker that’s going to be able to handle most of your sleep-wake tasks no problem.
Smart home control
Every Echo device doubles as a smart home hub. This one is no different, except for the fact that you will get a little less information on your miniature screen.
Instructing the Echo Spot to turn on or off a smart light will show an on-screen button in case you wish to toggle the light again.
Timers and alarms
The Echo Spot can also keep track of multiple timers in case you set them up through voice commands. The home display will only show one active timer but tapping that timer will take you to a scrollable interface where you can see the others.
No Camera; No Streaming: No problem?
The Echo Spot doesn’t have a camera which is good news for the privacy-conscious folks who want this to sit bedside, but it may not be great news for those who loved using their old Echo Spot to video call their loved ones.
On top of that, the Echo Spot is cannot play back videos or streams so you can’t use it as a viewfinder for any video doorbells or cameras installed in your household, like you can with other, larger Echo screens.
Motion Sensor
While the Echo Spot doesn’t offer any smart hub functionality, Amazon managed to bake an ultrasonic motion sensor right into the device. This means you can use the Echo Spot as a motion detector for any Occupancy Routines you wish you to make. Occupancy routines will do things like turn lights on when you come into a room, or play ambient music. You can set these up using the Alexa app and it’s routines setting.
Tap to Snooze
Like the Echo Pop and recent Echo Dot models, you can tap the top of the device while an alarm is going off, to snooze it. You can disable this feature in the Alexa app if you prefer.
Internal Hardware
The Amazon Echo Spot can serve as a decent upgrade to an aging Echo Dot too thanks to the built-in MT8519 processor which allows the device to respond faster to your voice commands. The dual-band Wi-Fi supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz as well.
Overall Thoughts: Amazon Echo Spot
How much you’re going to enjoy the new 2024 Amazon Echo Spot will depend on how you intend to use it. If it’s going to be your primary echo device with screen, you may find it mildly disappointing. But if you intend to use it either as a bedside alarm clock, or small space voice assistant, the new echo spot is a capable and handy device. Let’s cover the pros and the cons.
On the pro side, the screen is a decent size to give you the basics, the speaker quality is great for the size, and this form factor is ideal for places where you don’t have room for a full sized Echo Show device. The voice control is excellent, and it does almost everything that any other Echo device can do. If you are going to use it on your bedside table, the adaptive brightness and night mode mean it shouldn’t become a blazing distraction. And it’s easy to set daily or weekly alarms, and plenty of options for the sounds you want to wake up to. That is unless you’d like to wake up to your own music… Since it seems that’s not an option.
When it comes to the downsides, I had some struggles getting the Spot to update its settings via the app, the screen is kind of too small to be truly useful. But it is handy for glancing quickly at the time. I also didn’t love the extreme lack of options for personalization of the screen and what little information you can see on the display.
On its own merits the 2024 Echo Spot seems like it’s improved a few things from older small format Echo devices, but that’s it’s not excelling at any of them. And at its introductory price point, it’s asking a lot for what you get.
At $79 USD, the price is a bit high too especially compared to its deeply discounted price of $44.99 during the recent Prime Day sale. If you don’t need an Echo Spot right away or plan to buy it as an gift, I would wait for the price drop.
To be clear, Echo Spot is a capable compact smart speaker and it does what it promises and if this design appeals to you, you’ll be happy with the choice. But if you were expecting big leaps and bounds in terms of technology and features, this is not it.
