Alexa+, Amazon’s new-and-improved voice assistant, is slowly rolling out to beta testers before its full release sometime in the near future.
Unlike the original Alexa, Alexa+ uses AI in a number of ways to not only improve the quality of the conversation between you and the assistant, but also provide much more comprehensive services. For example, you can now use Alexa+ to create a smart home routine, order an Uber, or book restaurant reservations.
Alexa+ is currently in Early Access, meaning that Amazon is allowing a select number of people to try it and iron out the kinks (here’s how to sign up for Alexa+). When it goes live to a wider audience, it will cost $19.99/month, but will be included for free if you subscribe to Amazon Prime.
While I had a chance to use Alexa+ briefly a few months back at the launch event, it was only for a few minutes. About two weeks ago, I was granted early access to Alexa+, so I’ve been able to test it out a bit more over the past few days with the Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 5.
Here are my early impressions.
The interface is a major improvement — as long as you have a big screen
When you upgrade to Alexa+, it completely changes the look of your Echo Show to an interface that’s much more customizable. Now, you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to widgets.
Not only are there more widgets (around 100), but you can move them around the screen, much as you can with your smartphone. Even better: You can set up multiple screens, so you’re not confined to just one.
The new interface makes the Echo Show feel something closer to, say, the Google Pixel tablet, especially with regard to its smart home controls.
As someone who has a lot of smart home devices, I especially like the Smart Home widget, which has a bunch of thumbnails of my various cameras (it only works with Ring at the moment) and controls for other things, such as smart lights and thermostats.
What’s more, if you set up Map View in the Alexa app, you can see a floorplan of your house with all of your smart home devices. Amazon has basically taken the concept of the Echo Hub and turned it into a widget, so it will be interesting to see how much of a future there is for this device, as well as any other Echo device that doesn’t have a screen.
Still, there’s some work to be done. Of the 128 widgets I counted, a number of them were merely larger versions of each other, and their dimensions are fixed, so you can’t resize them to say a portrait or landscape orientation.
On the Echo Show 5, things are naturally a bit more cramped. You don’t get thumbnail views of your smart home cameras, for instance, and the screen can only hold three widgets (and small ones at that) at a time. Things also felt a bit pokey — there was a noticeable lag as I swiped around the display.
Alexa is more conversational — and apologetic
The first thing you’ll notice about Alexa+ is her voice (or his, depending on how you set it up). Alexa is much more expressive, and replies feel more like natural language, rather than something that’s purely transactional.
As a result, I found it much easier to carry on a conversation. Alexa+’s smarts also extend to when she messes up — she quickly admits her error, and then attempts to resolve it.
For example, I had a raccoon wander through my backyard a few nights ago, so I asked Alexa+ if there were any animals that were in my backyard at night. She then responded with a list of videos from my Ring cameras — but all of the results were from the daytime. I said as much, and she responded “You’re right. These are all during the day. I’ll look for night videos.”
There were a few other instances where Alexa+ didn’t return the results I was looking for — Amazon is still working out the kinks — and when I pointed out the errors, she was very apologetic, and worked to correct the mistakes.
As an Italian-American, I was particularly aggrieved when Alexa pronounced “gnocchi” as “knee-ack-y.” I told her as much, and she asked me if there was a better way to pronounce the word. After guiding her through something that was a bit better, she said she’d keep it in mind for future conversations. It took a few tries, but Alexa finally started pronouncing it correctly.
Alexa+ needs more integrations to succeed
One of the keys to Alexa+’s success will be its integration with third-party services. For example, it currently works with Uber, OpenTable, TicketMaster, and a smattering of other services, so you can use your voice to order a ride or get a reservation.
However, in order for this to truly be useful, Amazon will have to partner with a lot more companies.
For instance, I tried to book a reservation near my home at a sushi restaurant using OpenTable, but there just aren’t that many restaurants in the area that use OpenTable. As a result, Alexa+ returned options for places in New York City, which is a good 15 miles away.
While Alexa+ is shaping up to be a great in-home assistant, it’s going to need to do more if Amazon wants people to use it out of the house. To find things to do near me, I asked Alexa+ “what’s a good place to go kayaking near Red Bank, New Jersey?”
Alexa returned several helpful results, but she was unable to send me directions, or show me on a map where they might be. An Amazon representative told me that they are working on Alexa+ integration with turn-by-turn directions.
Alexa+ outlook
As an in-home assistant, Alexa+ already feels like a big leap forward from what came before. She’s an assistant you now talk to, rather than at. Conversations no longer feel one-directional, and she actually takes your comments into account, rather than returning a generic error message.
And, the on-screen interface makes Alexa a lot more functional, especially when it comes to controlling your smart home devices. But while the new design looks great on the large-scale Echo Show 15, it’s less so on the smaller Echo Show 5.
As the latter device was last updated in 2023, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon released a newer version of it (as well as other Echo displays) with a beefier processor to handle more Alexa+ actions locally.
Is there anything you’d like me to try with Alexa+? I plan to test it more thoroughly in the weeks and months to come before its wider release.
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