Promising technology let down by the software

• The Amazon Echo Spot has a great design that fits into any interior.

• The small, dark screen offers good visibility.

• However, software issues hamper Night Mode and other bugs dampen the experience.

On paper, the Amazon Echo Spot (2024) is a great smart speaker and clock. It’s cheap, looks great and is incredibly easy to set up and use. However, the Echo Spot is held back by something even older than the product itself, baffling software decisions that make the asset much harder to use.

Amazon Echospot 2024

6/10

The 2024 Amazon Echo Spot is a versatile smart display with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, ideal for video calling, streaming and controlling smart home devices. With built-in Alexa, you can enjoy hands-free voice commands, rich sound quality, and seamless integration with your daily routines.

Positives

• Great design that doesn’t clash with the decor

• Vivid screen with beautiful dials

• Touchscreen is great if you don’t want to talk to activate Alexa

Disadvantages

Price and availability

The Amazon Echo Spot costs $79.99 and comes in three colors: Ocean Blue, Glacier White, and Black. You can buy the Echo Spot separately or bundle it with a matching charging pad or smart light bulb.

Specifications

Sleek and a perfect addition to the bedside table

Let me get this out of the way. I love how the Echo Spot looks. The smart speaker has a minimalist aesthetic that fits in most environments, yet stands out enough to make it easy to read the time. I reviewed the Ocean Blue colorway and it matches my bedroom decor perfectly, but the Black and Glacier White colorways are also great choices that don’t clash with anything.

The screen looks great too. Unlike Echo Show devices with bright displays, the Echo Spot’s small screen is on the dark side. This makes it less noticeable, but still makes what is on the panel easy to read, such as the dials or other notifications.

See everything you need to see

The screen was the main reason I started to prefer the Echo Spot over my Echo Dot. It was great to see at a glance if I had set the alarm, if there was a notification, or just to make a note of the weather. While I could verbally ask my Dot about all of these things, having it available on an easy-to-view screen was preferable and made it less likely that my neighbor will think I’m losing it if I speak against an invisible ‘Alexa’ my bedroom talks .

Better yet, the Echo Spot’s display is a touchscreen. If I needed to pause or play music, adjust an alarm, or anything else, I could use the screen to navigate to it and change it on the fly. I didn’t have to navigate the Alexa app (which can be confusing depending on what you’re looking for) or try to talk to my Dot. I could achieve it with just a few taps on the Echo Spot.

Even just having a visible clock was nice, since I don’t have a standalone timepiece in my bedroom. I didn’t have to blind myself with my phone or read my smartwatch in the middle of the night to find out what time it was. The Echo Spot also implements a night mode that makes the screen much dimmer and the watch face darker, unobtrusive but easy to read at night.

The feature is great in theory, but when you try to use the Spot at night the software issues become blindingly obvious.

Software issues ruin the experience

I tested the Echo Spot in my bedroom because I wanted to use it as a smart alarm clock for its functions. When I bought my Echo Dot, I did so almost exclusively to be a smart speaker. I could play white noise and music while I slept. The other features, like controlling my smart lights, were just a nice bonus. For me (and I imagine for many) the Echo Spot would be a smart speaker and alarm clock for waking up in the morning.

But when I tested the Echo Spot at night, there was one major problem. I use Alexa Skills (apps, but specific to Amazon’s smart home devices) to play white noise at night, both to avoid having to connect to my phone via Bluetooth and to prevent my Now Playing lists get clogged with sleep music.

However, if you use Skills while the Spot is in Night Mode, the smart speaker will refuse to return to Night Mode. Instead, it shows the media player menu, which is significantly brighter than the dark red text on the Night Mode watch face. You can navigate back to the watch face, but it always returns to the media controls menu.

This is bad enough if the bright light wakes you up if you are a light sleeper. It didn’t wake me up at night, but the screen switching to media controls caused another problem: I couldn’t tell the time from where the Spot was on my dresser. Although the time is technically still visible, it is not easy to see. It ruined the only reason I would use the Echo Spot over the screenless Echo Dot in my bedroom.

The problem also persists when you play music whether it is an Alexa Skill or not. This isn’t even an issue unique to the Echo. Spotit was reported as an issue with other Echo devices as early as 2022. It’s baffling that a software issue like this has been around for so long without any real recognition and puts a huge damper on what is otherwise a great piece of technology.

Should you buy the Amazon Echo Spot (2024)?

It’s hard to recommend the Echo Spot 2024. While I love how the smart speaker looks and the hardware is pretty good, the software is what really holds it back. That said, if you’re okay with Amazon’s software quirks, this is a great, sleek-looking smart speaker that’s worth the purchase.

Amazon Echospot 2024

6/10

The 2024 Amazon Echo Spot is a versatile smart display with a 5.5-inch touchscreen, ideal for video calling, streaming and controlling smart home devices. With built-in Alexa, you can enjoy hands-free voice commands, rich sound quality, and seamless integration with your daily routines.