Gadgetory

this is Amazon's new echo spot it's yet another echo smart speaker that you can use your voice to command and control it and talk to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant now what sets is 130 dollar spot apart is its circular touchscreen which can display a clock information lists video and more just like the larger echo show from earlier this year you can also use that screen and the spots integrated camera to make video calls with other echo devices and phones basically the spa is a smaller cuter less expensive version of the show with many of the same capabilities it is to the show what the echo dot is to the full-size echo that means it does echo stuff it plays music it answers questions and control smartphone gadgets it can set timers and alarms you know all of the other stuff that other echo devices do Alexa send an alarm for 12:45 p.m. to Drake alarm set for 12:45 p.m. to Drake on Spotify you can get it in white or black and I definitely prefer the white model and the spots display measures 2.5 inches across and it's 480 pixels wide which makes it a bit too small to comfortably watch video on you can do it if you want but since Amazon and Google are in a big fight right now YouTube doesn't work so the options for videos is pretty limited mostly it's just movie trailers and Amazon Prime video content but the screen is great for displaying a clock and there's 16 different faces to choose from they both have analog and digital designs and four of them are customizable with your own photos in addition it displays album art to-do lists shopping lists and weather information right at a glance now on top of the spot are buttons for controlling the volume and muting the mic and camera there's also for far-field microphones which in my tests were able to hear my voice just about as well as the 7 microphone arrays on other echo devices the spot has a 1.4 inch speaker that sounds way better than the echo dots tinny speaker when Alexa talks it also sounds fine for casual music listening but it's obviously not going to work as well for that as a larger echo or as sonís one if you do want better sound you can link the spot to a larger speaker with a cable or Bluetooth which is a nice convenience to have now just like the echo show you can use the spot to make video calls to other echo devices with the screen or to a phone using Amazon's Alexa app now in practice this works pretty well the image is clear the sound is good and you can easily see the person you're calling and your own image right in the spots display now you can also enable that creepy drop in feature that lets you connect to another echo spot or show directly without anyone answering the call but video calling definitely seems like a feature that's better suited for the larger show than the smaller spot for example the spot is a perfect device to replace an alarm clock on your nightstand but I can't ever imagine wanting to make video calls while I'm in my bedroom the top button will disable both the camera and the microphones for voice control but you can disable the camera independently in the spot settings menu now admittedly that's not the most reassuring thing so you might be tempted to put a piece of tape over the spots camera like you might do on your laptop's webcam but amazon says that the spot uses the camera for the displays auto brightness so you might end up with a screen that's way too bright or way too dim if you do that I kind of just wish that Amazon would sell a version of this without a camera which would alleviate a lot of these privacy concerns but if you don't have a problem with the camera and you're not concerned about the privacy the spot is actually a great alarm clock for your bedroom you can set alarms with your voice you can even ask Alexa to wake you up to a specific artists song or playlist and then you can snooze the alarm with your voice in the morning or you can just silently dismiss it by touching the screen the spot will even display the current weather conditions when your alarm goes off so you know how to dress for the day when you wake up it's basically the perfect smart alarm clock if it didn't have an anxiety inducing camera built into the front of it amazon says that the spot can work in other parts of your home too but it's probably not the best echo for most other uses the larger show is better if you want a voice control display in your kitchen for recipes and background video watching while you're cooking or doing dishes and the audio only echo devices are better for a living room or an office where you probably already have other screens like a TV or computer all of that makes a spot kind of a tough sell it's not particularly inexpensive and it has a pesky camera that you might not want in your bedroom but despite that I personally really like it it looks cool it doesn't take up a lot of space on my nightstand and it has the ability to replace both the echo dot and the Sony alarm clock I have in my bedroom right now just Amazon please give me one without a camera Alexa subscribe to the verge at youtube.com slash The Verge Amazon music unlimited lets you play tens of millions of songs on this device