The Echo Dot is one of Amazon’s most affordable smart hubs, and while it doesn’t pack the most powerful speaker and isn’t as feature-rich as the Echo Studio, it’s a neat little way to enjoy the Alexa voice assistant. It even supports Alexa+ — Amazon’s upgraded virtual assistant powered by AI. However, as both Alexa and Alexa+ use the internet to answer your queries, play music from streaming services, and provide news and weather updates, what happens when there is no internet? Is the Echo Dot still useful without an active internet connection?
While the Echo Dot doesn’t turn into an expensive paperweight without the internet, its functionality is severely limited. As Alexa is heavily dependent on the cloud to process your voice commands, it can’t understand what you’re saying unless it’s connected to the internet. In fact, you can’t even execute commands that aren’t dependent on the internet, such as setting up an alarm or a timer. Additionally, the Echo Dot won’t be able to control your smart home devices in the absence of an internet connection. So what exactly can it do?
It can work as a Bluetooth speaker
The Echo Dot can function as a Bluetooth speaker — but there’s a caveat. It only works if you paired your smartphone or another device to the Echo Dot while it was still connected to the internet. If you have a paired device, you can use it to play audio through the Echo Dot. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to pair a new device until the Dot regains internet access. One workaround for temporary internet access is using your phone as a hotspot, but that requires you to use the Alexa app to change the Wi-Fi credentials.
Apart from functioning as a good Bluetooth speaker, the Echo Dot will play alarms and tell you about timers that you set up while it is connected to the internet. However, you won’t be able to end your alarm with a voice command and will instead have to press the button on the smart speaker. Similarly, as mentioned, you can’t set up new alarms or timers without the internet. Essentially, the device is crippled to a large extent when disconnected from a network.
