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Good
- Super audio
- Friendly design
- Easy to put in place
- Temperature sensor
The bad
- Limited smart-home features
Verdict
Buy it.Echo Plus offers a smart home hub and a rugged smart speaker in one device, delivering significantly better sound than its predecessor.
The line between Echo Plus and the other speakers in its range is blurry. Last year, the Plus calling cards constituted a high quality sound and an integrated hub for the smart home. But this year, a smart-home hub also appeared in the Echo Show, and a number of third-party devices, such as Sonos One and Sonos Beam, as well as the hugely popular Echo Sub from Amazon, have defined a new standard for intelligent audio speakers.
It is unclear what role the Echo Plus ($ 149.99 in the United States, 139.99 pounds in the UK) will occupy in the coming years. But the second-generation speaker presents itself well, with a new modern design, improved sound and some exciting new features.
Configuration: a snap
A complicated installation can be a barrier to starting a smart home. Echo devices, however, are still among the easiest smartphones to use and the new Echo Plus is no exception.
In total, the configuration of the Echo Plus took less than 2 minutes – the shortest time I ever needed to install an Alexa device.
Design: new but so familiar
Last year's echo sounded like a larger, finer and more gangrenous version of the original echo. Everything was bright plastic, with a loudspeaker grille surrounding the bottom.
It is also shorter and much harder than the oldest. It looks less like a tower built by extraterrestrials than a loudspeaker that would fit perfectly into a living room or a modern kitchen. Overall, it is an aesthetic device and a significant upgrade from its predecessor.
However, there is one thing that I prefer in the original More: buttons. The older Plus has a button to activate Alexa, a button to disable and reactivate the microphone and a circular dial that you turn to control the volume. I really liked the feel of this dial because turning up and down to adjust the sound seemed effortless.
MORE: Best Amazon Alexa Skills – Top 50 cool and useful things …
The new Plus replaced this dial with two volume buttons. The four buttons are visibly harder to press than those of the original and are hard to hammer quickly (as you would like with a volume knob).
Smart-Home Control: that's it
Most smart devices, such as smart light bulbs, lights, locks, and motion detectors, do not have the battery capacity to connect directly to your Wi-Fi network. Instead, they use a technology called Z-Wave or Zigbee to connect to a smart-home hub, which transmits their signal to your router.
It is very easy to add smart home devices to Echo Plus. To install a Philips Hue smart bulb, just turn it on and say "Alexa, discover the devices".
After scanning for about 3 seconds, Alexa told me that she had found the bulb and named it "First Light". From there, I could control First Light via the Alexa app or voice command. (You can rename your devices in the Alexa app.) It was far and away the fastest smart bulb setup I've ever made.
That said, the Echo Plus can only accommodate a limited number of devices. Specifically, it works with Zigbee-compatible devices (including Philips Hue bulbs and Amazon Smart Connector), but does not support Z-Wave devices (such as August Smart Lock and Schlage Connect). If you want to configure these devices, you will need a different hub, such as SmartThings V3 or Wink Hub 2.
However, it also means that you can no longer control these devices in proprietary applications of their brand. This means that once a Philips Hue bulb is paired with your Echo Plus, you can no longer enjoy the advanced features of the Philips Hue app.
This is unfortunate because the Alexa application does not offer a lot of smart home automation features. For example, in the Philips Hue app, you can automate the lighting of your lights at sunrise and sunset, or when you come from your home. In the Alexa app, you can not link your routines to anything other than voice commands.
The new Plus has an integrated thermometer. So you can configure Alexa to, for example, activate a fan when your bedroom exceeds 70 degrees. We found it quite accurate (to a degree).
MORE: Best Smart Home Hub
In addition, you will need to keep your devices in one place. I've been able to control devices about 20 to 20 meters from my Echo Plus; he lost the connection after that. This beach is acceptable, but not as big as that of the SmartThings V3, which can reach up to 30 meters (depending on your home).
Overall, Echo Plus will help simplify setup for new smart home owners. But it may not support all the devices you want to use and you will not be able to do anything too advanced.
Alexa: smarter than ever
Alexa, Alexa, is the voice assistant of Amazon. Alexa can call you an Uber, order pizza, report on the weather, tell you a joke or anything else you may need. In fact, in September, about 50,000 third-party skills were available for Amazon's voice assistant.
The greatest strength of Alexa is his general knowledge. It responds to questions quickly, thoroughly and usually more accurately than Google Assistant (even though Google has access to Google).
Another useful feature: you can use Alexa to call a friend (provided that he has the Alexa app on his phone) or send SMS (if you have an Android phone). Calling from Echo Plus was very easy and I clearly heard the other caller's voice. (You can not use it to call 911, though.)
Alexa, however, lacks guidelines. When I asked Alexa to tell me how to get to my apartment on the main street in Manhattan, it gave me a flying distance to get to an address from the Main Street in Rhode Island. Google, on the other hand, has returned the exact subway directions to my apartment.
Alexa, on Echo Plus, took an average of 2 seconds to answer my questions, which seemed rather reactive, but not fast enough to feel like a human conversation. The Google Assistant, from my iOS app, has taken about the same amount of time.
Audio: awesome, but not quite premium
The new Echo Plus could be Amazon's first real answer to Google's Home Max and Apple's HomePod. It offers a better quality sound than its predecessor, as well as the original echo. Most people will use it as the main source of music for a party or barbecue.
However, while the high and low frequencies were strong enough, I found that the midrange tones were more murky. This makes sense because the Echo Plus contains a 0.8 inch tweeter and a 3 inch subwoofer, but no midrange speaker. Even as I listened very carefully to the lower-than-multi-part harmonies in Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way," I could not distinguish individual voices.
MORE: 14 Alexa speakers, ranked from best to worst
That said, you can use Alexa's equalizer, via voice commands or via the Alexa app, to adjust the treble, midrange and bass tones of any song .
Overall, while high-end systems like the Sonos One provide cleaner sound, the Echo Plus can certainly work as the main source of music for a party or barbecue. And if you're not happy with its sound, you can still pair the Plus with a larger speaker, like the new Echo Sub, or a second Echo Plus, via a multi-room audio system.
Bottom line
Echo Plus is an excellent hub for smart home and smart speaker, but it's still not the best in both categories. That said, if you want to start a smart home or if you want an Alexa speaker with a better sound than other Echos, echo Plus is well worth the price of $ 149.
Credit: Tom's Guide
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