Its been a few years since I originally reviewed an Amazon Echo and since that review I’ve
mainly stuck to using the Google Assistant and Google speakers as my predominant assistant,
but last year I bought the latest Amazon Echo and Echo Dot, and in general I’ve been so
impressed with the progress Amazon has continued to make in this space, It's made me question
whether or not I was originally wrong about the Amazon assistant and the Echo and Echo
Dot and if Amazon's offering is just better than what you can get from Apple or Google.
So let's dive into that and who I now think the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are for.
Now this latest generation of the Echo and Echo Dot, look a little different than the
previous generation.
They’re a bit more round and wider and that classic LED light ring that alerts you to
all sorts of things is now at the bottom, making it a bit more subtle and a change I
overall really like.
One thing I’ve always appreciated about Amazon’s Echo design is they mark the buttons
for things like play/pause, volume up and down, and the mute mic button right at the
top of the device.
Apple’s HomePod doesn’t even have a mute mic button, and while Google’s does, the
volume and play/pause buttons aren’t marked, making it slightly less intuitive to use without
going through setup in the app that explains how it works.
Also, Amazon Echo and Echo Dot feature a 3.5 mm out jack.
It's so interesting to me that Amazon continues to include this feature on the Echo and the
Echo Dot because what it allows you to do is plug in your Echo to a better sounding
speaker.
And then make that speaker, now a smart speaker being powered by one of the Amazon devices.
It also makes previous devices that both Amazon and Google made, which were the Echo Input
and the Chromecast Audio.
pretty much obsolete when you can just plug in a smart speaker into a better sounding
speaker.
The audio on the Echo and Echo Dot has also improved a bit I’d say, but for the Echo
specifically, its bass on just a bit too muddy to me,and if I’m buying a speaker to listen
to music on, I’d rather buy a Sonos speaker, which overall still sound remarkably better
than the mainstream smart speakers from the tech companies, although they do cost more
too.
The nice thing about the Sonos speakers I bought and reviewed on the channel is not
only do they sound better, but you can also put the Amazon assistant on them.
So that’s a bit about the updates to the hardware design, but of course, with smart
speakers, hardware is just half the product experience, The other half is the Assistant
that lives on these speakers and that's to me where i think the Echo and Echo Dot really
shine.
The area which has mattered the most to me with the Amazon assistant is its speed.
It’s very quick with it’s responses.
In my experience its consistently about a second or two faster than the Google Assistant.
Here's what I'm talking about.
Me: What's the weather?
Assistants: “The current weather is right now, is fair five degrees and cloudy sky.”
Now, while this doesn't seem like a major difference, when you're using these assistants
throughout the day for things like playing music, setting reminders, timers, asking for
the weather or what time it is, all of that adds up and it does start to become noticeable,
especially though, if you use multiple types of assistance throughout the day, like i do.
I use all three assistants every single day and then when you do that, it really becomes
painfully obvious that the Google Assistant response times are just on average slower.
Now, I used to think my Google Assistant devices in my room were slower because I simply had
more Google devices in my room all trying to figure out which one should respond to
my voice query, however, since getting more Sonos speakers, I now have an equal number
of Amazon Assistant powered devices in my room as Google and the response times remain
unchanged, even with my Echo sitting right next to one of my Sonos Move speakers, the
Amazon Assistant remains a second or two faster than Google with Siri at about the same response
time as the Amazon Assistant.
Another thing that has vastly improved with the Amazon assistant, that does give me a
bit of a pause when considering which assistant I'd recommend people should go for is general
search queries.
So think anything you'd normally type into the Google search bar.
It used to be pretty much only the Google Assistant could reliably answer most search
queries, often giving me satisfying answers about 9 times out of 10.
Now, I found for a lot of search queries, the Amazon assistant actually gives pretty
comparable answers to answers you get from the Google Assistant, so much so that I'm
not quite sure if the Google assistant really has a significant competitive edge in this
area compared to the Amazon assistant anymore.
Now obviously yes, the Google assistant is still the best when it comes to search queries,
which you'd expect given that Google makes it, but Amazon has really closed the gap here
and here just a few examples of things i've recently searched for and the responses you
get from both assistants.
Me: “How long does basil typically last as a house plant?”
Alexa: Here is an answer from an Alexa answers contributor that I translated: basil and pods
last several months.
And if pruned will grow back later.”
Me: “How long does basil typically last as a house plant??
Google Assistant: “On the website growing-basil.org they say, basil can survive slightly longer
if grown indoors around 6 to 8 months.
Me: “How many Oscars does John Williams have?”
Alexa: “John Williams has won five Oscars out of the 52 nominations he has received.
His latest Oscar nomination was in 2020 for best achievement in music, written for motion
pictures.”
Me: “How many Oscars does john williams have?
Google Assistant: “John Williams has won five Academy Awards.
They include the academy award for best original music, score for Schindler's List in 1994
in the academy award for best original music, score for ET, the extra terrestrial in 1983
among others.”
Me: “What is the neo, urbanism school of thought?”
Alexa: From citymayors.com, the new urbanism design movement hails from the US, and is
a term attributed to the school of thought, which emerged in the late 1980s, that sought
to harness principles of livability and diversity in the way.
Urban space is designed and managed.”
Me: “What is the neo urbanism school of thought?”
Google Assistant: “On the website cnu.org they say new urbanism is a planning and development
approach based on the principles of how cities and towns have been built for the last, several
centuries walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity and accessible
public spaces.”
Amazon’s Assistant also has it’s own advantages compared to other Assistants as well like
the ability to read out loud your Kindle books in sync as you read them on your Kindle or
one feature I use all the time is alerts when items I’ve ordered from Amazon have either
been delivered or are on their way.
Another area, where the Amazon assistant Echo and Echo really outshine the competition is
with smart home devices.
In fact, its so good at setting up and controlling smart home devices, right now, it’s the
only obvious choice to go with When setting up devices like smart light bulbs, smart switches,
or my Roborock robotic vacuum cleaner, the Amazon Assistant automatically discovered
these devices as soon as they joined my WiFi network and it proactively added them to my
home.
It does this without me having to go into the Alexa app, whoops, sry, Amazon Assistant
App, to link my account which Google forces you to do in order to add 3rd party smart
devices to the Google Home app.
The Amazon App also does a better job than either Apple’s Home app or the Google Home
app at guiding you through what types of things you can do with your Echo, Echo Dot and Assistant.
While the one advantage I give to Google and Apple is I think having a separate app,like
the Google Home app and Apple Home app for smart home control is much more simple than
what Amazon does which crams the smart home stuff into the Amazon Assistant app with everything
else like media and music, and a bunch of other stuff.
Another thing Amazon has done an amazing job with is the setup experience of the Echo and
Echo Dot.
It’s one of the fastest device setups of any product I’ve tested.
And even if it's your first time setting up one of these devices, the setup experience
is still very fast.
And the last thing that I think might just sway me over to the Amazon Assistant over
the Google Assistant as the default one I recommend to people is Amazon’s willingness
to experiment more with their hardware design and their willingness to put their assistant
on more devices.
Plus their willingness to allow their assistant to be on the same device as another assistant,
which you can see working on various Sonos speakers today.
This is something both Apple and Google just refuse to do which makes Amazon's ecosystem
one of the most open and flexible in this space.
Now, while there is a lot to like about the Echo and Echo Dot and the Assistants running
on them, there is one glaring downside I’ve run into with the new Echo and it’s a pretty
big one.
The little rubber feed to help with sound isolation on the bottom, they actually have
produced a few marks on my wood side table which really sucks.
It's not something that I expected to have happen with this Echo, considering that I've
had other smart speakers on this table before, never had an issue, including the previous
generation of the Echo.
Now, rings around furniture from speakers is something when you Google this issue, it
is an issue that people run into quite a bit.
Especially if your table is made out of wood and it's like oiled, but for this type of
table, still, not something I was expecting.
Thankfully though the Echo Dot doesn't have the same indents with its bottom and I haven't
had any issues with it.
Also, there are several things I think Amazon could do to improve the Echo, Echo Dot, and
the Amazon assistant.
And the first one is supporting AirPlay 2 and or Google Chromecast for their speaker
lineup.
I think it would be great to be able to add in speakers like the Echo to AirPlay and Google
Cast groups.
Google and Apple's speakers definitely have a competitive edge here when it comes to grouping
their speakers together with other third party speakers into a single speaker group.
Another thing I think Amazon could improve is when the assistant is saying something
but you want it to be quiet, it would be great if you could just yell stop and it just stops
talking.
This is actually something you can now do with the Google Assistant, this rolled out
within the past year and it's something that i wish Amazon would bring to the Amazon assistant
as well.
So, back to the question I asked at the start, was I initially wrong about choosing the Google
Assistant as the predominant assistant to put in my home a few years back?
I don't believe so, but now that it's 2023, I just can't ignore the fact Amazon has caught
up to Google in a lot of categories where I thought Google was superior like with search
queries, given how easy having an Echo or Echo Dot makes smart home setup and control,
the hardware design, and most importantly, the speed of the Assistant, I think for most
people looking for smart speaker in 2023, Amazon speakers are the ones I'd likely suggest.
except since the Echo put marks on my wood table but the Echo Dot hasn’t, I’d probably
skip out on this generation of the Echo and just go for a Dot.
It doesn’t share that same bottom design, and has all the benefits of the Echo, just
not as great sound but it’s also a less expensive device to pickup and start out with
anyway.
So that would be the Echo device I would recommend.
Now, if you're looking to get a smart speaker mainly for playing music, my recommendation
here would actually be to pick up a couple of Sonos speakers and just skip out on Amazon
speakers entirely.
You can run the Amazon Assistant on them but they also include AirPlay support so you can
group them with other AirPlay speakers, or use them as a sound output for your Apple
TV or Mac, something I’ve been doing more and more now that I have a stereo pair of
Sonos Moves in my room.
We’ve done reviews on the Sonos Move, Sonos Roam and Sonos One, all of which you can run
the Amazon Assistant on.
Now Amazon Does have a more premium speaker, the Echo Studio, which competes with the Sonos
One and other speakers at the $199 US dollar price level.
But given it doesn't seem to support AirPlay 2 or Google Cast,I’d still recommend Sonos
speakers for multi-room audio over the Echo Studio.
Sonos also has a lot more speakers within its ecosystem, If you go with something like
the Echo studio, you're really just locking yourself into just Amazon-made speakers for
your music listening.
Now, if you're a Prime member and you just casually want to listen to music, but you
don't really necessarily have to have or care about better sound quality.
Then I think the Amazon Echo Dot might be the perfect speaker for you mow that the new
free version of Amazon Music that comes with Prime includes Amazon music's entire music
catalog.
And it's now ad free with its default shuffle mode, you can ask the Amazon Assistant on
the device to play a specific song and it'll play that song and then play similar songs
like it, in shuffle mode, which actually makes for a pretty decent casual listening experience
if you have no interest in pain for a music subscription.
If you want to check the current price of any of the devices I mentioned here in this
video, I've left purchase links in the description and comments below as well as here in this
video.
And if you're looking for what to watch next, check out some of the other smart speaker
reviews we've done on the channel and you can get to all of those by clicking on the
playlist to the right.
Hit that thumbs up button if you like this video, you found it helpful and interesting,
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For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thank you so much for watching.