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Amazon Echo Plus review

7.5/10 AVG.
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Amazon Echo Plus
...

By adding a smart-home hub into the Alexa-enabled Echo Plus, Amazon is trying to make the smart home more accessible to the masses.

- Mike Prospero, Tom's Guide 


If you’re looking to enter the world of the connected home, the Echo Plus is a great place to start.

- Gerald Lynch, TechRadar 

Specs / Features


Warranty (Months) 12 months
Release date 31-October-2017
Size 24 x 8 x 8 cm (9.5 x 3.2 x 3.2 in)
Weight N/A
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Reviews summary section

What's good

  • Good audio quality
  • ZigBee integration for one-box solution
  • New audio-out for speaker connection

What's bad

  • Random Alexa mishearing/misunderstanding
  • Home hub feature still lacking
  • No Z-wave compatibility
  • Bass is a bit weak

The original Amazon Echo took the tech world by storm as a game changer in the smart home assistant market. The Amazon Echo Plus was announced in conjunction with two other smart speaker devices, though it acts more as the centerpiece. Does the Echo Plus impress reviewers as much as the original?

Read below to find out!

There are no surprises when it comes to the design of the Echo Plus. It features the same tall, cylindrical design of the original Echo. Appearance-wise, there’s not too much difference aside from the choice of a metallic gray finish in addition to black and white and a volume ring up top.

The biggest upgrade is the built-in ZigBee hub that allows you to control your smart gadgets without needing a separate portal. Reviewers were also happy to discover improvements to the Alexa smartphone app, which allowed them to group devices into rooms and run automated routines.

It comes equipped with a 2.5-inch woofer and a 0.8-inch tweeter. The upgraded hardware and improved digital processing via Dolby impressed reviewers. While most agree it sounded better than the original, they disagreed on the extent of the improvements. Some consider it a huge upgrade while others found the upgraded sound quality more modest. Regardless, all agree it gets quite loud and they noticed little distortion.

With that said, they warned it was not a replacement for an actual speaker system--mostly due to the weak bass. Luckily you can connect to speakers via Bluetooth or with the line-out auxiliary port.

As a smart home assistant, its other important function is performing various tasks, whether that’s turning off the lights, ordering pizza, or booking a taxi. Alexa can perform over 15,000 “skills” and utilizes its 7 far-field mics to listen for the Alexa command.

When it works, experts call it “a magical feeling, a little slice of that Jetson’s future.” They add the mic array was quite sensitive as it was able to identify voices from far away, even over ambient noise.

Despite this, many still ran into issues of Alexa misunderstanding or mishearing commands. While it didn’t happen frequently, these mistakes annoyed them all the more as they felt random.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is its limited capability. While there are many ZigBee compatible gadgets, such as lights, switches, thermostats, and motion detectors, the Echo Plus is limited to lights, outlets, and smart locks, at least for now.

In addition, it cannot access any gadgets that are Z-Wave compatible. Other dedicated smart home hubs, like SmartThings or Wink, support both protocols.

Overall, considering the cost and features of other smart home hub options available, critics have a difficult time fully recommending the Echo Plus. The Verge states, “...it’s a little too simple to recommend...you’re better off buying the less expensive second-generation Echo and a dedicated smart home hub…” CNET adds, “...wait on the Echo Plus. There’s plenty of potential, yes, but it just isn’t there yet.”


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