Amazon Echo Spot: Review

To be frank, the world of the bedside clock is slowly dying.

With the advent of smart watches and mobile phones, the need for a clock to be sat by your bed doing nothing more than telling the time is starting to become a thing of the past.

Yet, with the Amazon Echo Spot, the company's made a strong argument for the return of the clock by piling more than just time-telling into a handy and compact device.

With a speaker and crystal clear display, the Echo Spot's place in the future is assured, and Amazon's swift kick up the backside of any other clock combinations is a welcome one.

Keeping the half-ball shape of the 2018 version of the Spot, the latest iteration of the smart device manages to do what it needs to well, all while ensuring it's done in a small package. 

While the Spot's face can only show the most basic of information (time, weather, and what's being played via Alexa), it does it in such a manner as to make it obvious what's what, but not intrusive in its execution.

Whilst it can't play video or connect to the Ring doorbells, its speaker offers crisp clear audio that's more than enjoyable enough and also loud enough to neatly fill up the airspace of any bedroom.

With an option to select from six displays (it would be good to have more, but that's the luxury of choice inflicted on so many of us these days), the keyword is really simple elegant execution.

Bright enough during the day and visible enough during the night, the Echo Spot sits comfortably in any bedroom and provides what you'd expect from an Alexa device. Whilst you do need to talk directly to it to activate it, there's little lag in response time, and even lowering your voice to it will see it still respond.

It's not a heft piece of kit by any stretch of the imagination, weighing in as it does at around 400g and its size means it can fit anywhere in a bedroom that you'd want without it feeling like it's dominating the room.

The only obvious issues that spring to mind with this device are the privacy concerns you'd have in a bedroom, the lack of any battery back-up meaning it would have to be permanently plugged in (something a mobile phone has an advantage with due to its charge) and an issue with getting the QR code to scan to start off with when setting it up.

Most of the device is controlled through the Alexa mobile app, meaning you can work it from anywhere in the rest of the house, should you want to.

But overall, the Amazon Echo Spot is well worth an investment in - it doesn't need to simply be confined to the bedroom, and can be used as a smart device throughout the house. It more than does what you'd need it to, and by virtue of doing it well - and more importantly, with ease, it's pretty much a sign that Amazon's doing much to bring the essential back to its devices.

An Amazon Echo Spot was provided for the purpose of this review.