1. Electronics
  2. Audio

The Best Alexa Smart Speakers

By Grant Clauser and Nena Farrell
Updated
Our four picks for the best Alexa speakers situated in a group next to a flower in a glass vase.
Photo: Michael Hession

If you want to play music, turn down the lights, or get the weather, all without accessing your phone, an Alexa voice speaker is what you need.

Whether you’re looking for an Alexa-powered smart speaker for jamming to music, finding and following recipes, keeping up with podcasts and the news, or controlling smart devices in your home, we’ve picked out the best model for your needs.

What to consider before buying


  • Amazon only

    Because Alexa performs inconsistently on non-Amazon speakers, we focused on Amazon Echo devices.

  • Speakers and touchscreens

    All Echo devices have speakers, but some also include a screen to view video, access touch controls, display recipes, and more.

  • Picking the right model

    Picking the right Echo device depends largely on where you’ll use it, as well as what functions you want or don’t want, such as a video camera or powerful audio.

  • Privacy

    All Alexa devices have built-in microphones in order to function, and some have cameras. If you want to ensure privacy, you can manually mute or disable them.

Read more

Senior editor Grant Clauser has reviewed consumer electronics for more than 20 years and has been a guest speaker on smart-home topics at events such as CES and CEDIA.

Nena Farrell has been testing and reviewing home-technology gear since 2016.

Alexa is the name of Amazon’s personal digital assistant, which lets you use voice commands to control a compatible device for features such as streaming music, getting news reports, or even turning on your smart lights. Alexa is found primarily on Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers but is also available on some devices made by other manufacturers.

All of the Echo devices are good (and some are very good) audio devices, but what makes them especially attractive is that you control them primarily by using simple voice commands. To access a song, an artist, or a music channel, you can say “Alexa, play the Dead Milkmen,” for example, and your speaker starts playing the music you requested from your music subscriptions. All Amazon Echo speakers can play music from Amazon Music Prime, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Apple Music. Some services, such as Pandora and TuneIn, don’t cost anything extra, but Amazon Music Prime requires a Prime subscription (and you can get Amazon Music Unlimited for an additional, per-speaker cost). Apple Music, SiriusXM, and Spotify Premium also require subscriptions.

Echo speakers are an inexpensive way to have a multiroom audio system. That allows you to play the same music all over your house or different tunes in different rooms (though your music subscriptions may impose some restrictions on that). The Alexa app allows you to group speakers in different rooms or zones, and you simply have to tell your speaker which room you want the music to play in (or whether it should play in all of them). Setting up the system is a little trickier than using a similarly featured Sonos system.

The Alexa smartphone app is mostly for setup and configuration. You can also use it to add new abilities or view to-do and shopping lists. Most of the time, you access Alexa’s features without having to interact with a screen at all (the Echo Show devices include built-in screens). You can walk into a quiet room and ask for music or step into a dark room and ask for lights.

Beyond streaming tunes, Alexa can answer general questions (“Alexa, who was Guy Fawkes?”), make quick cooking conversions (“Alexa, how many pints are in a gallon?”), help with math homework (“Alexa, what’s 9 times 48?”), or create a to-do list (“Alexa, add ‘make doctor’s appointment’ to my to-do list”). You can also use an Alexa speaker to make phone calls or as part of an in-house intercom system to talk through other Alexa speakers inside and outside your home. The list of built-in capabilities and thousands of third-party Skills continually expands.

Alexa makes controlling smart-home devices far easier. All you have to do is say “Alexa, turn off the den light” or “Alexa, lock the front door,” and the speaker will take care of it for you. Alexa works with more smart-home devices than any other voice platform, though both Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri are catching up.

This guide is for anyone looking to add an Alexa-powered smart speaker into their home, whether for the first time or when adding to an existing setup.

If you’re just getting started with smart devices, such as a smart plug or light bulb, adding a smart speaker that lets you use voice commands to control them is a logical next step. This is also a convenient addition for existing Amazon Prime users, since an Echo device can give you alerts about your latest order, and Echo Show smart displays can act like a TV for Amazon Prime Video as well as other streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.

This guide helps you find the best Echo device for your needs. For smaller homes and apartments, you might find you want only one or two Alexa devices, since the microphones are powerful enough to pick up voice commands from a room away. In larger homes, you may want to enlist a fleet of Alexa devices to act as a multiroom sound system, while also optimizing your ability to control smart devices.

Alexa raises some security and privacy concerns. We can’t speak about smart speakers without addressing the fact that these devices have microphones and, in some cases, cameras. If you have concerns, read the Security, privacy, and Alexa section for details on what these devices can and can’t do.

For those who have accessibility restrictions, such as mobility and sight limitations in particular, the ability to use voice commands can also be a valuable asset. For instance, smart speakers allow someone to make voice calls without needing to physically manipulate a device, but they also can be used as an intercom to communicate with other members of a household (or, when paired with a smart doorbell, with visitors on the front porch). Echo Show smart displays allow those with low vision to hold up a pantry item and have it identified. We go into even more detail in our guides to using smart-home devices for seniors aging in place and for enhancing independence for those with disabilities and mobility needs.

Four of our picks for best Alexa speakers
Photo: Michael Hession

For this guide we considered all currently available Amazon Echo speakers and smart displays. While you can find Alexa support built into speakers from other brands, the experience of using Alexa on those devices is consistently worse compared with using any Amazon Echo device. They take longer to reply or process requests, have fewer special features or less reliable integration of such features, and don’t receive updates of features as quickly. We believe that if you’re interested in an Alexa speaker, the best choice is one of the various Amazon-branded Echo devices.

Most Echo speakers and displays do essentially the same things. They play streaming audio and respond to voice commands. Because they all use the Alexa platform, they’re all mostly compatible with the same smart-home devices, and they all include essentially the same skill set. All of them have volume controls, a button to turn off the microphones, and a button to get the device to listen without your having to speak the wake word. Many also function as Bluetooth speakers and can send their audio to another Bluetooth speaker. In testing, we consider both the speaker’s performance as a smart speaker and its sound qualities, along with any additional features, such as an included screen.

In addition to the general Alexa features, we evaluate each speaker on the following criteria:

  • Listening: A voice-controlled device is useless if it can’t hear you, so we test them at various distances and voice volumes, and with and without background noise (including the speaker’s own music).
  • Sound quality: We listen to a variety of music, both through standard streaming services and via Bluetooth. Sound quality varies greatly because some of the Alexa speakers are designed for more critical listening than others. But we look for reasonably good sound in line with the price and size of the speaker.
  • Design: Smart speakers aren’t devices that you hide away, so you’re likely to prefer a speaker that looks good on a shelf or counter, especially if you plan to use more than one in your home.
  • Setup and use: All Alexa speakers use the Alexa app. But we still compared to see if different models had different setup steps, such as an Echo smart display versus the speaker-only Echos. We then compared how each one’s features could be used and where each model excelled in the home.
The Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen), our pick for the best Alexa speaker for beginners.
Photo: Michael Hession

Our pick

The Echo Dot includes all the standard Alexa features at a great price, and it sounds good enough for any starting Alexa user to enjoy music and voice commands.

With its clear, surprisingly loud sound and small size (which makes it easy to fit just about anywhere), the Echo Dot (5th Gen) is for anyone who wants to get started using a smart speaker without making a big investment. It costs half the price of Amazon’s flagship Echo, yet it still includes nearly all the same features. Similar to the previous generation and the current Echo, the fifth-gen Dot is sphere-shaped and fabric-covered, and the shape makes it quite a bit larger than previous puck-shaped Dot generations. This Dot includes volume and microphone buttons on top, and for $10 more it also comes in a clock version and a child-friendly design (with an owl or dragon printed on the fabric).

On both the Echo and the Dot, Amazon has moved the notification light from the top of the speaker to the bottom. Video: Michael Murtaugh

The Dot gives you all the control and search features of Alexa. And despite its small size, it’s surprisingly loud and clear, even at high volume. The Dot would satisfy anyone looking to replace a bedside or desk radio, and the fifth generation has better bass than previous models, though the overall sound isn’t quite as robust as our recommended Alexa speakers for music. You can connect the Dot to any Bluetooth speaker, or use a 3.5 mm stereo jack for a wired audio connection into a powered speaker or an audio receiver.

Even though the Echo Dot doesn’t have a screen, it still has some call abilities. You can Drop In (Amazon’s term for using Echo devices like an intercom system) to other Alexa devices in your home, or send a broadcast announcement to all of your devices at once. You can also add up to 10 phone numbers with your Alexa account, or eligible AT&T and Verizon users can link their mobile number to the account to directly make and receive calls.

The Dot’s fifth generation includes some features that put it more on a par with the flagship Echo speaker, though it doesn’t have the same audio performance and power. It has both tap gesture controls and an ambient temperature sensor like the Echo does, though the Echo’s tap controls work only for alarms, while the Dot can also be used to pause and resume music. The fifth-gen Dot also has Eero Wi-Fi built-in, meaning it can be used as an add-on extender (or mesh node) to extend an Eero router’s mesh Wi-Fi network. (Check out our guide to mesh Wi-Fi networks for more on how they work.) We’re still testing how well the Dot works with an Eero Wi-Fi system, and will update this guide with our results.

Overall, the Dot is an affordable and easy way to try out Alexa or to expand your ability to use voice commands throughout your home, and its improved sound over previous generations make it a fine-enough starter speaker. But the more expensive Echo models are a better option for anyone who wants higher-quality audio performance or features like video calls and recipes that require a screen.

The Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) on a counter with its display screen reading a prompt for its urgent response system, Alexa Emergency Assist.
Photo: Amazon

Our pick

The flagship Echo smart display has a crisp touchscreen and fits comfortably on a desk, counter, or shelf. It’s great for video chats or as a cooking companion.

Buying Options

The 8-inch touchscreen on the newest Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen) tells you it’s more than just a speaker. The Show 8 has an 8-inch HD screen, a reasonably powerful speaker, and a 13-megapixel camera with a privacy cover (for those moments you want to be absolutely sure you aren’t on camera). That 8-inch screen gives this model a variety of capabilities the regular Echo and Echo Dots don’t have, including video-call abilities, a library of recipes you can consult onscreen, and streaming video from services like Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube.

The 13-megapixel face-tracking camera is good for video calls. As with other Show devices, with this one you have a few video-chat options to choose from: You can ask it to call other Alexa devices in or outside your home, and you can hold video chats with others via the Alexa smartphone app or make Skype or Zoom calls. You can also use voice to direct-dial a phone for an audio call. The center-mounted camera includes a physical privacy cover, and there’s a separate button to turn off the microphone.

In our tests, during a video chat with a colleague who had a first-generation Echo Show, the video quality was fairly sharp, and sound was on a par with that of a video call we made using a smartphone. The Show 8’s camera also has the ability to automatically zoom in and pan around to follow the speaker; to the viewer, it looks a little like watching a documentary on TV. We found this to be a mostly smooth experience, though it sometimes would follow the speaker’s hands instead of their face, causing the camera to refocus and readjust.

The downside of using a Show device for video calls, instead of a laptop or tablet, is that you can’t connect either Bluetooth or wired headphones; this is an issue if you share an office or work from home with others. And when you use it for Zoom calls, you can’t use the chat box.

The sound quality is decent for casual music listening. The Show doesn’t sound as full as the main Echo speaker, but it has more bass than the Dot, thanks to the passive bass radiator on the bottom. It’s not what we’d use to entertain guests, but it’s fine for music while you’re preparing dinner. Amazon also added spatial audio to this version, though if that’s an important feature to you, we advise getting the bigger Echo Studio speaker instead.

The Echo Show 8 is an excellent kitchen assistant. You can do all the usual things you might do using voice commands with a regular Echo or smart speaker—set timers, ask for measurement conversions—but Show devices also have a massive library of recipes that you can search. Ask Alexa to show you recipes for “banana bread” and “chocolate chip cookies,” and it does an excellent job of pulling up relevant recipes from a variety of recipe sources. Once you choose a recipe, it’ll display the ingredients and the steps onscreen. And if you like, you can ask Alexa to walk you through these steps, or if you prefer, you can just refer to the screen. The 8-inch screen is a good size for viewing most of the instructions and seeing everything fairly clearly, versus smaller screens like on the Show 5.

Alexa’s recipe library pulls from BuzzFeed Tasty, Food Kitchen, and Food52, along with smaller blogs like Kitchen Stories. The screen also displays options for filtering search results with common terms like “vegetarian” or “30 mins or less.” If you prefer to cook from printed recipes rather than referring back to the screen, you have to go into your Amazon account from a web browser, locate your saved recipes, and print from there.

It’s good for smart-home control, but it could be better. The Echo Show 8 has a Zigbee hub built in, which allows you to control many popular devices that connect over Zigbee wireless without having to use an extra, proprietary Zigbee hub. It also acts as a Thread border router, so many newer Thread-compatible devices should be able to communicate with each other more reliably. And it supports both Matter and Amazon Sidewalk, both of which are still-emerging wireless technologies. The display allows you to directly control any other smart devices, such as lights or outlets, using an interface on the touchscreen, or to view any cameras that you have integrated with Alexa. But the interface for touchscreen control isn’t particularly efficient. The wall-mountable Echo Hub, which hasn’t been released yet, looks to be a much better option if that sort of control is important to you.

The Amazon Echo (4th Gen), our pick for the best Amazon speaker for top audio performance.
Photo: Michael Hession

Our pick

The fourth-generation Amazon Echo sounds good and works with most smart-home devices, including Zigbee-compatible ones.

Buying Options

The Echo (4th Gen) is the latest version of the original smart speaker, with all the Alexa functions (besides the ones limited to smart displays, like recipes) as well as impressive sound for its size and price. The fourth-generation Echo has a more direct driver design than previous generations, for better sound. And it has Dolby processing to enhance the stereo effect from a single speaker, replacing the previous 360-degree audio design found in older models. (If you want an authentic stereo setup, you can opt to buy two Echoes and pair them.)

It sounds good for its small size. This speaker includes two 0.8-inch (20 mm) tweeters instead of one. Its 3-inch (76.2 mm) woofer is also placed at the top of the speaker instead of the bottom. The upside of the dual tweeters is that the new Echo delivers a reasonably effective stereo effect for a single speaker. But that direct driver design means the sound quality of the speaker, as well as the stereo effect, can shift depending on where you are in the room. This Echo also plays slightly louder than previous versions, and it sounds pretty clean at high volumes. It also has the ability to dynamically equalize its sound based on the ambient conditions in the room, a feature Amazon calls Automatic Room Adaptation. An equalizer—which you can adjust by voice command (“Alexa, turn up the bass”) or in the app—allows you to tweak the bass, treble, and midrange settings to your liking.

An overhead view of the Amazon Echo (4th Gen). Photo: Michael Hession

Being a great listener is important in any relationship, and we found the Echo meets the challenge, even with some ambient noise in the room. When it is playing at full volume, you may have to walk over to the Echo and press the microphone button to get its attention. But at normal to moderately high volume, it will usually catch your voice through the din.

You can opt to pair the Echo with your smartphone via Bluetooth, if you want to play songs stored there, or to use podcast apps or a music service Alexa doesn’t support. You can also associate an Echo with any other Echo devices in your home to work together as a multiroom audio system, similar to how Sonos systems operate, though the experience is not as seamless. That allows you to play the same audio in several or all of your Echo speakers at the same time.

It’s great for voice control of smart-home devices. If you want to control the greatest number of smart-home devices, then this Echo is one to consider because it includes a built-in Zigbee wireless hub that connects to a wider variety of things than a Wi-Fi–only Echo like the Dot does. It also has an ambient temperature sensor that you can use to control smart-home routines, such as turning a fan on when the room hits 75 degrees. However, we didn’t find its temperature readings to be particularly accurate—it tended to take a reading and stick with it for several days, despite the temperature changing throughout the day.

The Amazon Echo Studio, our upgrade pick for the best Amazon speaker.
Photo: Michael Hession

Upgrade pick

Amazon’s best-sounding speaker includes Dolby Atmos and lossless music-streaming abilities.

Buying Options

The Amazon Echo Studio is Amazon’s biggest and best-sounding Alexa speaker, and it has a correspondingly larger price tag (more than twice that of the standard Echo), on a par with that of a Sonos One (which it rivals in sound quality and beats in functionality). Powering its audio are five speaker drivers: a front-firing 1-inch tweeter, two side-firing and one upward-firing 2-inch midrange drivers, and a 5.25-inch down-firing woofer. The result is far better bass punch than you’ll get with other Echos. You can also pair it with a Fire TV to serve as a soundbar, of sorts, which will be an improvement over any built-in TV speakers (though probably not better than an actual soundbar).

This speaker can stream Amazon’s lossless audio files. But you have to pay an additional cost for HD high-resolution music service on top of Prime Music. The Echo Studio also supports Dolby Atmos, which adds a more immersive height effect to sound. Though it doesn’t support direct streaming of Atmos-mixed music from Tidal, it does support a library of 3D-audio tracks from Amazon Music HD, which are mastered in both Dolby Atmos and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio spatial audio codec. The Echo Studio can also upmix stereo music into a simulation of 3D audio, though in our testing, we’ve found the quality of this upmixing can be a little inconsistent. Amazon has also rolled out a software update for the Echo Studio with spatial audio processing technology, which we’ll be testing soon.

This is the best Echo for audio. When it comes to power and performance, the Echo Studio has no equal among the lineup of Echo devices. Yet even when cranked to high volume, it could hear and respond quickly to voice commands—a strength we attribute to its being a native Echo speaker (versus a third-party one). The Echo Studio also has a feature similar to the Sonos’s Trueplay; it’s called Automatic Room Adaptation, and it continuously auto-tunes sounds based on the acoustics of the room in which it’s playing. Unlike a Sonos, however, the Studio doesn’t require the use of a smartphone.

If you’re interested in a multiroom speaker setup, we recommend pairing an Echo Studio with the fourth-gen Echo (and other Echo devices); you can read more in our multiroom wireless speaker guide.

The Amazon Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen), our pick for the best Amazon speaker for bedside tables.
Photo: Michael Hession

Our pick

This pint-size version of the Echo Show is perfect for catching a weather report and playing tunes while you get ready in the morning.

Buying Options

If you want a small display for a bedside nightstand or bathroom, the Echo Show 5 (2nd Gen) has a small footprint and a nicely sized 5½-inch display. A physical camera cover ensures you won’t need to worry about accidentally flashing anyone if they call your device (as long as you have the shutter on, that is). The screen auto-dims when you turn out the lights, mimicking an unobtrusive vintage glow-in-the-dark clock. In the morning, it offers an easy way to set alarms, play music, check the weather report, and trigger any smart-home Routines.

The Echo Show 5 is a great bedroom alarm clock. You can adjust the screen’s brightness manually, but we never found ourselves fussing over tweaking the automatic adjustments. The clock mode that the display switches to in a pitch-black room is dark enough that we slept easily with the display just a foot away from our face. The display comes with useful alarm-clock features like Sunrise (which slowly brightens the display until your wake-up time), and tapping the top of the display will snooze the alarm. During the day, you can customize the second-generation Show 5 with a few different displays. For those who have relied on a smartphone to check the time during middle-of-the-night wake-ups, we’ve found that the switch back to a clock display can be calming and helpful.

The Show 5 (2nd Gen) also comes with a manual lens cover and a mute button for the microphone. Given the smart display’s placement on a nightstand, we suggest keeping the cover closed until you want to place a video call. But though the Show 5 has video and calling abilities, these sounded a little worse on the Show 5 than on other Echo devices, and its microphone picked up less sound than other Echos.

The Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) displaying a digital clock at the time of 9:28.
Echo Dot (5th Gen) with clock Photo: Nena Farrell

Also great

If you’re used to having an LED clock by your bedside, this version of the Echo Dot will feel familiar. It packs the same features as the regular Dot, with a small screen that can show the time and weather.

If you’d prefer a smart alarm clock that is completely camera- and screen-free, the Echo Dot (5th Gen) with clock is a good choice. It’s the same size and design as the regular Echo Dot, and it has the same features. But there’s an LED display (which is slightly larger and brighter than the previous Dot’s display, with a boxy font style) built into the mesh sides that shows the time, along with other sorts of info based on the questions you ask Alexa.

The LED display does more than tell time. It can change to show the weather when you ask Alexa for it, and it can also show dots on the right side of the clock—one on the top right to signal a timer is set, and one on the bottom right to signal an alarm is set. And when you ask for the weather, the screen will change to show you the current temperature outside as Alexa gives you the full weather forecast. The fifth-generation version can also do a few other screen tricks, including showing calendar event times, math equations, and artist or song names when you play music. We found its scrolling letters and font style to be reminiscent of a small stereo screen showing you a band name.

The Dot with Clock doesn’t have a built-in light sensor, so its screen doesn’t dim when the lights are off, as it does on Echo Show devices. So if you require a pitch-black room in order to sleep, you might not like the Dot with Clock for a bedside table. But if you’re used to having a digital clock, the always-lit screen will feel familiar. You can also ask Alexa to turn off the clock, if the screen is bothering you, and then it’ll appear as a regular Echo Dot does.

We polled several staff members who have Alexa in their homes through various Echo devices—some that are picks, some that are not—and we consistently heard that it works well for weather, music, and setting timers across households.

There are some mixed results on the smart-home front. While Alexa has a huge number of smart-home devices that work with it, we’ve found that it sometimes takes very specific language to get a smart-home command to work correctly. More-nuanced controls like dimming lights or color changing can be harder to complete with a voice command than simply turning a light on and off.

A few Alexa users also mentioned the need to get language right when requesting a song, too, and frequent misunderstandings from Alexa. “It never seems to get our request right,” said one staff member.

An overall issue with Alexa these days is its need to constantly make additional suggestions for how to use the device. Alexa will include these after answering a voice command, usually starting with “By the way…” One of our testers specifically mentioned a downside of Alexa was how much it keeps talking after they engage with the device.

A smart home can provide a lot of convenience and assistance to anyone with mobility needs and disabilities, and those aging in place. The features of Amazon Echo devices can be handy for anyone in these categories—easily setting reminders and alarms, providing voice control over any smart products like lights and locks, giving you the ability to make calls to other rooms in the house over Drop In, or to use an Echo Show to make a face-to-face call. But Alexa also packs a variety of accessibility features in Show devices.

For those with visual limitations, Show devices also include the Show and Tell feature, where users can hold up a product and ask “Alexa, what am I holding?” to identify the product. We’ve tested the Show and Tell feature on several items and found it works, but we do wish it could identify items faster. Amazon recommends using this with “common pantry items” that have a barcode on the box or container.

Echo Show screens also offer caption options for calls, Alexa responses, and streaming content from Amazon Prime and other select sources. Users can also adjust Alexa’s speaking rate or ask her to speak slower.

More details about Amazon’s accessibility features can be found on the Alexa Accessibility page. And we go into more depth on these topics in our guides to smart-home devices for aging in place and smart-home devices for people with disabilities and mobility needs.

It’s a bit ironic to talk about security and privacy when you’re adding to your home devices with microphones and cameras that are all designed to listen and respond to you. There have been plenty of bumps along the way when it comes to consumer privacy for smart speakers like the Echo devices in this guide. Even earlier this year, researchers found that an attacker could force Alexa to hack themselves with a self-issued command (which is something Amazon has since fixed). But those features of microphones and cameras are also what make a smart speaker so useful, and it can’t do what it should without them.

We reached out to Amazon and asked it to respond to an extensive questionnaire, in order to confirm issues we think should be of primary concern for any potential (or current) Alexa user. Amazon told us that no audio is recorded or sent to the cloud until a wake word like “Alexa” or “Echo” is stated, and users are able to review and delete transcripts and recordings from said cloud via the Alexa app. Certain devices—the Echo (4th Gen) and Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen)—allow you to require almost all requests to be processed locally, instead of sending audio clips to the cloud; this is a feature we hope Amazon adds to all Echo devices in the future. Amazon does share data with third parties, in order to make certain Skills work and to fulfill requests. So you should keep an eye on what Skills you’re adding to your Amazon account.

We’ve included more details and answers from Amazon below. We know some people don’t like the idea of being listened to by artificial intelligence in general, and we address that issue in detail in this blog post.

What specific user data does an Amazon Echo device, and its companion app, collect?

  • Amazon Alexa app: Amazon collects three types of data about its users: information you provide when using Amazon Services that includes purchases, shopping searches, and Prime Video history; automatic data collection, which includes login information, computer IP address and location, and device metrics; and information from other sources, such as updated address information from Amazon’s carriers and information about how you’ve interacted with Amazon subsidiaries. More details are available at Amazon’s Privacy Notice, and you can find more detailed examples of data Amazon collects here.
  • Echo microphones: Echo devices are designed to detect only a customer’s chosen wake word, such as “Alexa” or “Echo.” No audio is stored or sent to the cloud unless the device detects the wake word or Alexa is activated by pressing a button.
  • Echo cameras: Some Echo cameras can use visual ID, which stores facial recognition data, including the Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen). But users must enroll to use the feature, and Amazon says the data used to recognize you is stored on the device only.

Is a user’s identifying data (such as email addresses or Wi-Fi info) encrypted when stored in the cloud?

  • Yes.

Are interactions with Alexa encrypted in the cloud?

  • Yes, and users can review and choose to delete voice recordings and transcripts. The Echo (4th Gen) and Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen) have the option to have audio of requests to Alexa processed entirely on the device, without sending any audio to the cloud.

Does this device record and share location data (address and/or country)?

  • Yes, Echo devices record zip code and other location information to provide users with certain functions, such as local time and weather. The Alexa app also requests mobile device permissions in order to hear requests, provide personalized results, help set up Alexa-enabled devices, and support certain features.

Do you share data with third parties, developers, and partners?

  • Yes, but only information that is needed to fulfill user requests and Alexa Skill questions, or to comply with law enforcement. Amazon’s Privacy Notice has more details. Users can also control what information each enabled Skill gets in Alexa’s privacy settings.

Are users able to opt out of sharing some or all of their data—and if so, how?

  • Yes, and users can use the Alexa app and the Alexa Privacy Hub to access and manage their privacy settings.

Do Amazon devices contain inactive or active but unadvertised hardware, such as sensors, cameras, microphones, or the like?

  • No, Amazon Echo devices feature only the advertised microphones and cameras, both of which include off buttons. Any cameras also include a built-in manual shutter.

In 2021, Amazon introduced a new feature of its Echo devices known as Sidewalk, a private, low-bandwidth connection between devices, even if they’re not on the same home network. This means that if both you and your neighbor have Sidewalk enabled, you might be using a bit of their internet connection and they might be using a bit of yours. Overall, we’re not happy about the fact that Amazon chose to make this service opt-out, rather than opt-in, but other than that, we’re not as concerned as other outlets are. You can read more about our stance on Sidewalk, and get more details about how it works, here.

Many readers are concerned about how the manufacturing, shipping, and normal use of the products we recommend impact the world we live in. We take that seriously too, which is why we’ve asked the manufacturers of all our picks to answer some basic questions about materials, life cycle, and other sustainability issues. While our product recommendations are based completely on the criteria outlined in How we picked and tested, we offer this information to supplement the decision of any reader who uses environmental impact as a deciding factor in their purchases. We also recognize that this may not paint a complete picture of a product’s supply chain and life cycle impact.

For this guide, we asked Amazon whether the packaging and/or the products use recycled materials, and whether the packaging and the products are recyclable. According to Amazon, some Echo devices (the company was unable to name how many) and accessories in 2021 include 10% to 60% post-consumer recycled plastic, 40% to 100% post-consumer recycled fabric, and 80% to 100% recycled aluminum, depending on the product. The company is working toward sourcing 100% of the wood fiber in packaging from either responsibly managed forests or recycled sources. Amazon is also working toward making its device packaging 100% recyclable by 2023.

Amazon also says its Amazon Echos are designed to continue to get updates, so customers don’t have to upgrade and get rid of existing Echo devices to get the latest features and software. The company says there are still customers with active original Echo devices from 2014. If you do want to upgrade, Amazon offers a recycling program for Amazon devices and select accessories, and Amazon covers all costs associated with shipping and recycling the device. There’s also an Amazon Trade-In program to get an Amazon gift card in exchange for certain eligible items.

We plan to update this guide with detailed testing notes on using the Echo Dot (5th Gen) as an Eero Wi-Fi extender, and the Echo Studio’s spatial audio processing technology.

Amazon revealed a slew of new products during its annual fall event, and we are most looking forward to testing the $180 Echo Hub and the $50 Echo Pop Kids.

  • The Echo Hub is a wall-mounted 8-inch display with built-in support for Matter, Thread, and other major smart home protocols. It’s intended to make it easy to view and manage. all of your smart home devices. It connects by WiFi or an optional USB-C adapter for direct connection to an ethernet router. It will arrive later this year.
  • The Echo Pop Kids comes in either a Marvel’s Avengers or Disney Princess design and corresponding character themes. The stripped down smart speaker enables pre-built Alexa Routines, sleep sounds, homework help. It will arrive later this fall.

In our tests of the newest and cheapest Echo speaker, the Echo Pop, we couldn’t find any good reason to recommend it over the Echo Dot. The Pop sounds fine for a small bedside speaker, but the Dot has a little more bass and overall better sound quality. The Pop isn’t available with a built-in clock display, and lacks motion and temperature sensors. The only reason you might consider it is if you prefer the Pop’s color options. If price is a factor for you, just wait for the Dot to go on sale, which it does frequently.

The Echo Dot (3rd Gen) is still available if you prefer the puck-like look over the rounded style of the fourth-generation Dot, but it’s only a few dollars cheaper than the latest model.

We skipped testing the Echo Dot (4th Gen) Kids, since it’s the same as the Echo Dot and Echo Dot with Clock. It does include a year of Amazon Kids+ content, parental controls, and a longer warranty period (two years), if these are of interest to you.

The Echo Show 8 (1st Gen) is a fine option if you aren’t worried about video quality (it has a 1 MP camera, not the 13 MP camera on the second-generation model), and if you can find it on sale.

The $250 Echo Show 10 is a relatively pricey model due in large part to its signature feature: a display that can automatically rotate on its base to follow you around, along with a camera that can zoom in on the subject. We found it too large to comfortably place in a home. On top of that, in our testing we learned that it can bump into nearby objects, and its mechanical zoom felt gimmicky and distracting. Our pick, the much cheaper Echo Show 8 (2nd Gen), has the same 13-megapixel camera with a much smoother software zoom. The Show 10 also left a large ring on our wood table; we discovered it was actually stuck to the surface, and we had to put in a surprising amount of effort to remove it.

The Echo Show 15 also currently costs $250, and though it has some new features, none of them merit the higher price compared with that of the Show 8. This model is too large to comfortably hang or prop it where you’d be able to make use of its touchscreen (it clocks in at 18 inches diagonal bezel to bezel, with a 15-inch touchscreen). And this smart display requires more setup than any other one we tested—even more if you wall-mount it, which is the default option. Should you decide to post it on a flat surface instead, you’ll have to buy a secondary stand. In terms of functionality, it doesn’t excel at streaming video well enough to rival a wall TV. And its Photo Frame mode shows massive pillarboxing on any photo that isn’t the right size and orientation—so much so that an entire second photo could fit onscreen. This model’s large footprint also makes it difficult to install in a kitchen location where it’s comfortable to view recipes.

This article was edited by Jon Chase and Grant Clauser.

Meet your guides

Grant Clauser

Senior Editor

Grant Clauser is the senior editor for the smart-home and audio/video categories. He has been reporting on technology since 1999 and has been an invited speaker at events including CES and CEDIA. He has completed certification classes from THX, ISF, and Control4. He also teaches poetry classes. Really.

Nena Farrell

Updates Writer

Nena Farrell was an updates writer covering smart speakers, wireless TV headphones, tabletop radios, and digital photo frames, among other things. She was previously an associate editor at Sunset, and is currently a writer and reviewer at Wired.

Further reading

Edit
Dismiss