I received the Amazon Echo Spot and wasn't 100% sure what to expect. I'd heard various bits about it before – both good and bad but I have to say, I really enjoy using it.
It's handy for someone who, like me, has a bad memory (part of a medical issue), as I can just ask Alexa to add items to a shopping list and then I just recall it when I'm ready to go shopping.
It's been good with helping the kids with some homework too as they just ask Alexa for some information on a subject and get it from her.
I already had an Amazon music account which is now linked to the Spot and I can listen to all my songs in one place. I've been using it for my alarm clock in the mornings too instead of my phone and find it good for that.
You can have either an alarm sound, any radio station you pick or any song/artist from your playlist to wake you up when the alarm goes off. The quality of the music is pleasantly surprising, even when it's turned up it doesn't go distorted like some speakers would.
My four year old likes to ask what noises an animal makes and tries to think of different animals each time. My older two kids use it for homework and silly things like jokes and finding some pranks to try on each other.
We keep Alexa in the front room and then move it upstairs on a night so I can use it for the alarm and as a clock at night. I've noticed the clock goes into night mode from 10pm and glows orange with no news updates like it does during the day. It also displays the weather on it too, which is good.
I think the only downfall is it isn't portable and is run off a main charge so it has to stay in one place but ideally we'd now like to have at least one more of these in the house so we have one upstairs and another downstairs.
The Echo Spot is selling at around £119 which, for some people, is a lot of money but I do think it's worth it as it really does do a lot. You can enable game playing on it too like Pointless and others, there's so much you can do with it that we've not already done and are still discovering!
For me, I think the best features are the access to Amazon music. Being a big music lover, I find it hard listening to music during the day; especially when the kids are home, but with the Echo, I can have it sat at the table with me and listen to music while I keep busy online.
It can search for songs when you ask so you literally have millions of songs to choose from even if you don't own them, most of them have the words displayed too so you can sing along until your heart’s content!
I don't think I could add or change anything about the Echo to improve it, apart from maybe a slightly clearer camera as the photos can be a little grainy but for the size it's good. It really does do everything we could have hoped for and more.
I've really enjoyed testing the Echo Spot and feel like we'd be lost without it now - it's almost like Alexa is now a 6th member of our family!
I would definitely recommend this product to family and friends as it really has helped the kids and us adults too.
