If you cannot be bothered reading this, click the image above and watch the unboxing in all it's glory.
I’m a fairly picky person when it comes to technology, as all the reviewers online tend to just jump onto whatever bandwagon is currently in season, and tend to gush over how wonderful the things are. I on the other hand tend to call a spade a spade, as I have the right to as I buy in all the stuff myself using my own money, and not donated.
So… let’s begin… the new (in the UK) Amazon echo spot was just released and delivered to me on Wednesday and after a long day working outside, still suffering from the virus thing that has infected so many people in the UK at the moment, I needed some cheering up!
You can watch the video of me unboxing the item as it happened (above), and please excuse any muffling or cough that I may have missed on the edit.
Opening the delivery package, you are greeted with a blue box with a picture of the echo spot on it, and on opening the echo spot box itself, all the items in the package are very well wrapped and presented very neatly.
I decided to go for the Black echo spot as I felt the White unit would not look right in my bedroom, and I was right, as it just blends into the background out of the way and my eyes not getting attracted to White that would show in the semi-darkness of the room.
Now, I have read other reviews online and people say that the echo spot is ugly… I find it to be fine, and ugly is certainly not what I would use to describe it, but I would say it’s more like its designed as a normal alarm clock but with modern technology twist built into it, and at that it looks fine.
Coming in at £119.99 it’s certainly not a cheap clock... but the again it in no way expensive considering what you are getting from the device itself, it’s not JUST A CLOCK!!
Basically we have an echo dot with a screen on it, primarily being used as a clock we can talk to. That’s it in a nutshell, and it’s ideal for my needs. 99% of the time I’ll not be looking at the screen unless I roll over and check the time, or see a message appear. I still have my Amazon echo dots all around the house and they fit my needs in the locations they are in perfectly as well. There is a large border around the screen, but I personally don’t think of that as an issue either as the screen size as it stands is fine.
Feature wise, I read a complaint from another reviewer that you cannot watch YouTube videos on it… seriously… most people who buy this are buying it primarily as a clock that you can use with Alexa, and while there is a screen, that will be for the functions that require it, but surely not something you can bring it down on for not being able to play videos from YouTube. Heck don’t these reviewers have a laptop, tablet, phone, watch in their bed as well and now they want to watch their clock! GET A GRIP!
The sound quality from the echo spot is absolutely fine for my needs as well. If I wanted louder sound I could always add on an extra speaker, but again for my needs I have no use for increasing the volume or having larger speakers attached. Common sense dictates, if I want a device that has loud audio etc., I’m not going to be looking at a device such as this, so again, using that as a negative against it is just a joke.
As there is a camera on the device, the more paranoid amongst us will want to turn this off, and you can do this by tapping the central button at the top of the echo spot. Alternatively, you could cover the camera, but that may cause you issues if you use the automatic light sensor. As for me, I'm happy to leave it on as anyone wanting to spy on me in my bedroom must have a pretty sad life if they are going to get any enjoyment from what they see in there!!!!!
The Alexa app allows you to configure alarms etc with ease, but one strange thing that many are complaining about is that you cannot set the clock to show time in 24 hour format, something that is pretty weird, considering that just about anything with a clock interface does this. I'm sure a simple software update will sort this out easy enough.
I am about to order up another one of these for my living room area as it just fits in so well to my surroundings, like all the other stuff I have, and at a price that really is a steal to me!
I suggest that if you are curious about this device, order it from Amazon and try it out, and you are unhappy, you can always return it for a full refund!