Amazon Echo Spot (2024) review.

Amazon’s original Echo Spot had much of the functionality of the Echo Show smart displays. The Echo Spot 2024 ($79.99) is more of a successor to the discontinued Echo Dot With Clock. The smart speaker offers full Alexa voice functionality, displays useful information like the time and weather on a small screen, and even supports touch controls for some smart home devices. It also offers reasonable audio quality for its size, though it lacks a camera and video playback capability. The Echo Spot is still worth buying if you want a simple smartwatch for your bedside or desk, though most people are better off with the $89.99 Echo Show 5 for a full smart display or the third-generation Echo 4th of $99.99 for a more powerful display. smart speaker.

---

Design: Like a half egg with half a screen

With an elongated profile that looks like an egg cut in half in width, the Echo Spot closely resembles the $39.99 Echo Pop. It’s slightly larger overall at 4.4 by 4.5 by 4.1 inches (HWD) compared to the Pop (3.6 by 3.9 by 3.3 inches). The Spot is available in Black or Glacier White like the Pop, though it trades the Pop’s Lavender Bloom and Midnight Teal options for an Ocean Blue finish (the version featured in this review).

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

A speaker grill at the bottom and a glossy black semicircular panel at the top divide the upward-angled front surface. The flat base has a rubber foot that keeps the device steady on a table or nightstand, while the back has a single recessed port for the included 15W power adapter. A $29.99 charging stand is available in Charcoal or Glacier White color; it has two USB-C ports and one USB-A port for charging other devices. Completing the design are the far-field microphones, along with volume up, volume down and mute buttons on top.

On the audio front, the Echo Spot has a front-firing 1.73-inch mono driver. That’s the same size as the $49.99 Echo Dot. For reference, the standard Echo has a more advanced setup with a 3-inch woofer and dual 0.8-inch front-firing tweeters.

For connectivity and streaming, the Spot offers dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (Amazon doesn’t specify the version or available codecs). It also supports the Amazon Sidewalk shared network for extending the functionality of Alexa devices, Ring cameras, and other Amazon products and services, though I generally recommend disabling this feature for security reasons. The Spot can work as a Wi-Fi hub for Matter devices, but it can’t serve as an Eero Wi-Fi hotspot like the Echo Dot and Echo Pop.

Setting up the Echo Spot via the Alexa app (available for Android and iOS) is easy. When you connect the device, a QR code appears on the screen that you can scan with your phone. Doing so brings up a guide in the Alexa app for connecting the Spot to your Wi-Fi network and connecting it to your Amazon account. After that, the Echo Spot appears in your list of devices along with any other Echo or Alexa-compatible smart home products in your home.

---

Display: simple but effective

Although the Echo Spot’s color touchscreen is distinctive, it doesn’t quite turn the Spot into a smart display. The panel disappears against the glossy black surface on the front to give the illusion that the entire semicircular panel is a screen, but only a 2.83-inch square area is actually usable. It’s bright and vivid enough that text and icons remain visible from several feet away in both dark and light environments, though visibility drops if you move sideways. The meager resolution of 320 by 240 pixels is extremely large.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

As mentioned, the Spot’s display is more of an evolution of the Echo Dot With Clock than the original Echo Spot. Amazon does not intend for you to use Spot for visual communication or content; after all it doesn’t have a camera or support any kind of video playback. But it shows more information than the Echo Dot With Clock and supports basic touch controls. I found the ability to see the time and weather at a glance, tell what music is playing and make simple adjustments to smart devices very convenient.

---

Smart Features: Alexa is primarily about voice

Like an Echo device, the Spot is built around Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. Say, “Alexa,” followed by a command, and Spot will respond. (You can also choose “Amazon”, “Computer”, “Echo” or “Ziggy” as the wake word).

Asking Alexa to play music is the most obvious use for a smart speaker. This works with Amazon Music and Audible, along with other music streaming services like Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify and Tidal. You must link your streaming service account through the Alexa app for this feature to work. The album art appears as a small thumbnail in the middle of the screen when music is playing, along with the playback controls below it.

You can also ask Alexa for news and weather reports, sports scores, currency and stock prices, and broader queries like unit conversions. Very limited supporting information appears on the Spot screen, although you do get icons and temperatures if you ask for the weather or a simple number value if you ask how much a foreign currency is worth. Otherwise, Alexa’s responses are exclusively vocal.

Alexa supports local voice calls, including directly to phone numbers in North America and the United Kingdom via Skype and through Alexa’s Drop In service. However, without a camera, you can’t make video calls through Zoom or any other service like on a smart screen.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

If you have Alexa-compatible smart home devices, you can connect them via the Alexa app and control them through Spot. Alexa works with most major brands of smart lights, smart plugs, smart locks and smart thermostats. However, you cannot access home security camera feeds; as mentioned, Spot does not support video playback.

All the features I tried worked very well in testing. If I asked Alexa to adjust a light in my apartment, call a phone number, give me a weather report, convert yen to US dollars, or play music, I got the correct answer right away. A brightness slider for the smart bulb appeared on the screen when I changed the light, while the temperature and converted yen value appeared when I asked for them.

---

Sound quality: Good audio with some bass

Small speakers usually don’t deliver much bass, and the Echo Spot is no different. Because of the front-facing driver, you’ll get the best audio experience if you sit directly in front of it.

The kick drums and synthy bass notes in our bass test track, The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” sound poppy and lack any punch. They also start to distort at maximum volume level. The Echo Dot performs identically here, though the standard Echo captures the lows more fully.

Yes ‘Roundabout’ sounds much better in country. The opening notes of the acoustic guitar get a good sense of low-mid resonance, while some treble clarity is present to bring out the string texture. Bass, hi-hat, guitar and vocals all remain distinct in this busy mix and benefit from strong detail when the track kicks into gear. However, the highs drop off a bit, which pushes the guitar sounds a bit behind the bass and vocals. I’m pretty happy with the audio quality considering the speaker’s small size, especially since it can get loud enough to fill my living room without distortion.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

If you want the best audio quality, you should stream over Wi-Fi through Alexa and not from your phone over Bluetooth. The music I streamed from my iPhone during testing sounded noticeably less detailed and hollower than that over Wi-Fi.

---

Verdict: A quality smart speaker with a small screen

The Amazon Echo Spot 2024 ditches some of the smart display features from its predecessor, but it works well as a smart speaker. It sounds just as good as the Echo Dot, has a more useful display than the Echo Dot With Clock, offers basic smart home controls, and reliably responds to Alexa commands. Overall, it’s a worthwhile buy for a desk or nightstand if you just want a modern, Amazon-centric look at the clock radio. Just remember that you can get a full smart display experience from the Echo Show 5 or better audio from the standard Echo speaker for a little more money.