Gadgetory

this is the Amazon echo spot a smallish orb shaped Alexis speaker with a built-in touchscreen camera aside from using Alexa exactly as you would at the Amazon echo the echo spot also lets you make video calls check it on your smart home camera feeds or watch video on that tiny two-and-a-half inch touchscreen at 130 dollars the spot splits the difference between the pint-sized echo dot and the touchscreen equipped echoes show like the dot it's a small sized speaker with an oxide jack that lets you connect it with bigger speakers like the show that touchscreen adds an extra layer of Glantz ability to the Alexa experience and it's not just the clockface you'll also see extra info during weather forecasts video clips during your flash briefings lyrics and album art when you stream songs from Amazon and more as you use Alexa like normal still I question how much that touchscreen actually adds to the Alexa experience this is still very much a voice first user interface and the display often feels like an afterthought the other problem is that your video options are extremely limited for instance there are almost 4000 different news sources you can add into your flash briefings but only 27 of them feature video to make matters worse you can stream video from sources like Amazon Prime video and twitch but you can't stream from YouTube at least not right now that is a huge blow to this ecosystem and it's not gonna get any better until Amazon and Google stop squabbling with one another I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen as for the camera amazon says that it only uploads video during video calls and drop-ins and you can disable it altogether in the settings or by just pressing the mute button still I have preferred that Amazon put a physical shutter on the spot you could keep that camera covered until you actually wanted to use it I mean after all a lot of people are gonna use this thing as an alarm clock and keep it pointed straight at their bed all-in-all the echo spot is a charming looking gadget with a nifty nest-like design and it makes sense if you think you'd use it to make lots of video calls or to check your smart home camera feeds it has everything that you like about Alexa and a brand new package and I also like that it's a lot louder than the dot but like the echo show the echo spots visual interface is underwhelming and the lack of YouTube support is a major disappointment I like the spot but I'm not ready to recommend it yet not even for Alexa