Amazon stops selling Echo Wall Clocks

It doesn’t matter how intelligent a smart device is, without a reliable internet connection these gadgets are rendered completely dumb. That’s why Amazon has decided to take the Echo Wall Clock off sale just over a month after it launched.

As The Verge reports, some owners are experiencing connectivity problems, which results in a very frustrating user experience as you can imagine. The clock is still listed on Amazon, but rather than a buy button there’s the message, “Currently unavailable. We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.”

Since removing the clock from sale, Amazon has confirmed connectivity issues are the reason through a spokesperson, who said, “We’re aware that a small number of customers have had issues with connectivity. We’re working hard to address this and plan to make Echo Wall Clock available again in the coming weeks.” It sounds as if we shouldn’t expect to see it again until late February or early March.

It’s not surprising to find reviews for the clock are mixed at best. At the time of writing, 23 percent of reviewers awarded it one star with overall quality and pairing problems being the main complaints.

I think what’s most surprising about this is Amazon not spotting the connectivity problems in testing before release. Alexa devices have been around for a while now and the Echo Wall Clock doesn’t do anything new, so what went wrong? Could it have something to do with this Echo device relying on AA batteries for power, perhaps?

This article originally published at PCMag
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