Order the Amazon Echo 2nd Generation HERE for the lowest price available (Do NOT pay retail!)
Buy in the lowest price on Amazon (Fabric Charcoal) https://amzn.to/2LmXQua
Buy in the lowest price on Amazon (Oak Finish Limited Edition) https://amzn.to/2uwJaz3
Buy in the lowest price on Amazon (Oak Finish Limited Edition) https://amzn.to/2uwJaz3
The Good With a variety of new designs, the new Amazon Echo is better-looking than the original, just as smart and a lot less expensive. The addition of an aux-out jack lets you connect it with your existing audio setup. It's also a slightly better listener than before.
The Bad Though fine for casual listening and strong enough to fill a room with music, the Echo still doesn't sound as good as premium, high-fidelity speakers. The volume ring of the original is gone, replaced with the cheaper volume buttons of the Echo Dot.
The Bottom Line Alexa is still the most compelling voice control platform, and the new and improved Echo should only boost her momentum. It's well worth $100.
AmazonEcho 2nd Generation Review:
Three years after the debut of the original, Amazon decided the time was right to refresh its flagship smart speaker, the voice-activated Amazon Echo. Heneration two arrives to find a landscape littered with new competitors - not just the Google Home, but also Apple's HomePod, the platform-agnostic Sonos One, The Cortana-powered Invoke from Harman Kardon and countless others.
At $100 -- nearly half the cost of the original -- the new Echo seeks to undercut them all. Like its predecessor, it doesn't offer premium audio quality, but it's still strong enough to fill a room with decent sound. And, if you like, you can connect it with your existing audio setup using either Bluetooth or a 3.5mm cable, something you can't do with the original. It looks better than before, too, with an attractive and compact new design and a variety of new, interchangeable "shells" to choose from.
To be clear, the new Echo isn't any smarter than the first one -- it does everything the original does, and the original does everything it does, save for connecting with external speakers. That list of capabilities continues to grow, though, thanks to a regular roll-out of skills, software updates and integrations with third-party gadgets and services.
In short, it's the same Alexa speaker that quickly became a dominant smash hit, only now it's cheaper and nicer-looking. If you're interested in bringing voice controls into your home, smart or otherwise, the Echo still offers the most bang for your buck.
Alexa What's New?
That's another interesting thing about the new Echo: It doesn't feel all that new, at least not as far as features are concerned -- and not when you compare it to more creative Alexa offshoots like the fashion-focused Echo Look selfie camera and the Echo Spot touchscreen alarm clock.
Those offshoot products reflect Amazon's eagerness to make Alexa relevant to as many people as possible. With the Echo, Amazon just wants to be sure it doesn't "fix" what isn't broken. The result is a cosmetic and conservative step forward.
Aside from the aux-out jack, the new Echo doesn't boast any new hardware capabilities, nor did it launch with flashy new software or new, marquee skills. Even now, more than half a year since its arrival, the new Echo hasn't acquired any extra features that don't apply to the old one. Ask the new Echo and the old Echo the same question and they'll each give you the same answer.
To borrow some Apple parlance, think of the new Echo as an "S" model: a refinement, for sure, but not a redefining one.
Instead, Amazon points to the past year's worth of big additions, including calling and messaging, smart entertainment controls, voice recognition, the ability to ask Alexa to remember things for you, music alarms and the fact that you can synchronize music playback across multiple Echo devices. The point isn't to get existing Echo owners to upgrade, but to sweeten the deal for anyone who hasn't bought in yet (and to keep the existing userbase engaged with the platform -- after all, if doesn't cost much to switch over to Google).
Amazon did take the occasion to give Alexa a tune-up, with a refreshed app and refined smart-home controls that let you control devices such as lights and locks directly from the Alexa app. You can also turn your Alexa-compatible smart switches on and off, or adjust the color of any Alexa-compatible color-changing bulbs.
Those controls also let you create "routines," where a single Alexa command can trigger a series of actions in your home. For instance, saying "Alexa, goodnight" could lock your smart lock, turn the lights and the TV off, and fire up a bedroom space heater you've plugged into a smart switch.The best part is that you create your own custom Alexa command to trigger the routine. Power users should have a field day with that.
Here's another improvement for anyone who owns Alexa-friendly smart lights: You can now add each Echo device to a single, default group of lights. To control those lights, just tell that Echo device to "turn the lights on." If you'd prefer, you can also schedule your routine to run automatically at a specific time, no Alexa command necessary. More than anything, that feature reflects Amazon's attempts to position the Echo lineup as bonafide smart home hubs -- particularly the $150 Echo Plus, which uses a ZigBee radio to quarterback lights, locks and other smart home gadgets.
Grouping your lights and Echos by room is an easy way to make things a little more intuitive. If you tell the Echo in your kitchen to "turn the lights on," it'll turn the lights on in the kitchen. If you tell the Echo Dot in your bedroom to "turn the lights off," it'll turn the lights off in the bedroom.
That's a good, common-sense step in the right direction, but it isn't specific to the new Echo. Again, like all of the new software features, it applies to the entire Echo lineup, including the original. That means that there's very little reason to upgrade to the new Echo if you're already happy with the old one.
Keep an eye on this space -- I'll be sure to update it regularly as new features arrive.
Buy in the lowest price on Amazon (Fabric Charcoal) https://amzn.to/2LmXQua
Buy in the lowest price on Amazon (Oak Finish Limited Edition) https://amzn.to/2uwJaz3
Review by Ry Crist CNET