The cheapest, easiest gateway to Alexa

The Echo Dot may be the most important piece of hardware Amazon has ever made.

You heard me. Not the Kindle. Not the original Echo. Certainly not the Fire Phone. While the first Amazon Echo unlocked the possibilities that go hand-in-hand with voice, it was the Dot, with its simple design and more affordable price, that made that experience ubiquitous by putting it in every room.

Since it debuted in 2016, the Echo Dot has become a cheap and easy way to jump into Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem (especially after the price dropped from the original $90 to $50). The company frequently touts it as its “most popular” Echo device. And, of course it is. The price is already low, and you can frequently buy it discounted (on Prime Day, Black Friday, or any other “deal” day throughout the year). It also shows up on several Amazon device bundles. Want a Fire TV Stick? Why not toss in an Echo Dot for a few more bucks?

However, as the Dot has flourished, it’s put the device’s flaws under a microscope. First and foremost on that list is the weak, tinny sound from the speaker. In fairness, the Dot was never marketed as a high-fidelity audio device; that’s why the only physical connector it has (besides power) is an audio output for connecting to an external speaker system.

The third-generation Echo Dot addresses this fundamental weakness. The design is physically larger and heavier to accommodate an upgraded speaker, which has a 1.6-inch all-range driver (the previous design had a 1.1-inch driver). The power connector, previously a microUSB port, is now a proprietary connector. The power plug is beefier, too, and the cable is hardwired to it (no USB port).

Changing up the cable is understandable — it’s no doubt due to the increased power demands of the larger speaker — though it does mean you can’t just use any old microUSB cable to power your Dot anymore. Since it’s a “set and forget” device, that’s not really a big deal. At least not until you move and you forget which box the power adapter is in.

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The new design of the Echo Dot is definitely a level up. For starters, it’s heavier — 10.6 ounces to 5.7 ounces for the previous design — accounting for that bigger speaker. It’s also larger and more bulbous: less hockey puck, more bulging ice cream sandwich. Cases for the previous design aren’t compatible with the new one, but Amazon does offer the new Echo Dot in three colors: Charcoal (black), Heather (gray), and Sandstone (white).

The four buttons up top are in the same configuration as before, with volume up and down at the 12 and 6 o’clock positions, a mute toggle at 9, and the button for calling up Alexa without a wake word is at 3. What’s new are tiny holes beside each button, showing where the microphones are (the previous design had speaker/mic perforations all along the rim).

Image: Pete Pachal/Mashable

Final point about the design: The overall diameter has increased from roughly 3.5 to 4 inches. That may mean the 3rd-gen Echo Dot won’t necessarily fit into every spot the previous one did, and since it’s heavier, you may want to put extra adhesive for those on-the-wall installs.

The sweet sound of Alexa

I should point out that the Echo Dot still provides a 3.5mm audio jack for connecting to an external speaker. But the new design is an acknowledgement that, for many rooms and situations, that’s not a realistic option, and few people are going to opt to shell out $150 for an Amazon Echo Plus, which has superior speaker tech, for every room that doesn’t have its own speaker system.

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In other words, for most, the Dot is what you’ve got. And, in my experience so far, it’s plenty — certainly a more-than-adequate smart speaker for most bedrooms. But it gets even better: In its current generation of Echo products, Amazon has added the ability to create a stereo pair with a second unit (more on that in a minute). You can even put an optional Echo Sub subwoofer into the mix, something I’ll have more to say about in a future review.

I have several first- and second-generation Echo Dots all over my house, and from the first “Hello” from Alexa when I set up the 3rd-gen Dot, I could tell the sound got a major upgrade. I put the new Dot in my bedroom, where I have both an gen-2 Dot and a Google Home Mini as well, so it was a good place to compare performance.

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For starters, the Echo Dot can play considerably louder than the previous model. It still has just 10 levels, but, for the new model, 10 is about a 20 on the old one. And don’t think you have just 10 volume to choose from — with the buttons, you have more granular control. I counted 30 different volume levels as I pushed the “+” button to full volume, the light ring lengthening with each press.

I asked Alexa to tell me a story to get a sense of how normal speech-based interactions would sound. Reciting “The Dare,” Alexa’s voice was fuller and clearer, taking advantage of the superior dynamic range. By contrast, on the old Dot, Alexa sounded like its normal tinny self, with audio that was barely better than an ancient transistor radio. Background sounds, like a chattering voices or footsteps were much more apparent on the new Dot. At full volume, I did hear some slight distortion in Alexa’s voice, but it was only in a couple of spots.

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Moving on to music, I played Taylor Swift’s “End Game” featuring Future and Ed Sheeran on both Dots, one after the other. The gen-2 Dot overemphasized the lyrics, really downplaying the opening organ notes, and when the beat began, the cymbals sounded smushed, like what I imagine you’d hear if you were standing next to someone attached to an iron lung.

On the new Dot, the lyrics and instruments were better balanced, and I could better discern Future’s voice in the background. The overall sound was considerably better; music from the old Dot was never more than passable, while the new Dot is comparable to a good Bluetooth speaker. That said, although the frequency response was clearly better, lower bass “thunks” are still clearly out of bounds for the Dot.

Things got even better when I paired the 3rd-gen Echo Dot with a twin to create a stereo pair. Amazon has made the setup incredibly easy: Once you’ve turned on and set up the second Dot, all you do is navigate to the Settings section of either unit in the Alexa app, select “Stereo Pair / Subwoofer” and select the other Dot as its partner (the one you originate pairing from becomes the “primary” Dot). Then you pick which one is the Left or Right channel, something you can change anytime.

On the sound, I gotta say: just wow. Not necessarily because the Dot is an amazing speaker in general (though it’s definitely pretty good), but because it’s such a difference from relying on a single, old-design Dot. I confess, I’d been occasionally relying on my bedroom Dot for music in the mornings while I got dressed and ready for the day. Switching to a stereo pair of new Dots, about eight feet from each other, was a serious upgrade.

Sticking with “End Game,” the soundstage expansion was apparent. A single speaker can only do so much, but two Dots filled the room with sound, giving all the instruments more presence (without being overpowering). Positioning on the soundstage wasn’t always clear (that could be the recording or processing at work), but the point is it didn’t feel confined, which, despite their omnidirectional nature, is something omnidirectional speakers like Echo Dot can rarely overcome on their own (there’s a reason even Apple’s well-reviewed HomePod has a stereo setting for when you have two units).

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The spatial separation was even more apparent on other songs. Listening to the Tragically Hip’s “Thompson Girl,” I could hear the tambourine concentrated in the left channel while the late Gord Downie’s lyrics came through mostly from the right.

Interestingly, spoken word doesn’t benefit from the stereo pairing. Alexa’s speech, news reports, and podcasts from AnyPod all played only from a single Dot (the primary one) when I called them up. However, internet radio broadcasts, like those from default service TuneIn, are in stereo. Clearly if something is in mono, the Echo will simply isolate it to a single channel, rather than mirroring the audio with the second unit to create an, uh, echo.

Alexa, be nimble

Functionally, the new Echo Dot is virtually the same as the old one, with a couple of subtle improvements. The 3rd-gen Dot is the first Echo product I’ve set up that actually knew exactly where it was, from a geolocation standpoint. In the Alexa app, you can manually put in the location for any Echo device, and if you don’t, it’ll roughly estimate where it is (in my case, it usually thinks it’s in the next town over). The new Dot was the first Echo to automatically fill this in — correctly — on its own.

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It also responds to queries slightly faster, at least in my experience. For most common informational questions (e.g. “Who won Game 1 of the World Series last night?”) there isn’t much difference in response time between the new and old Echoes, but every now and then it’s considerable. When I asked them both, “What is Instagram?” the old Dot took about five seconds to process the query and answer, whereas the new Dot did it in less than one.

It’s hard not to recommend the new Echo Dot: It’s certainly suited for any situation you would have put the previous designs in, with the bonus of audio good enough to negate the need to connect separate speakers in many situations. But if we’re being real, you were probably just settling for the old Dot’s crappy speaker anyway, with some loose plan to maybe hook up an old Bluetooth speaker or something, someday — if you ever got around to it.

In that sense, the 3rd-gen Dot is almost too successful. It’s turned what was just a passable entry point into the Alexa ecosystem into something you’d be very satisfied with — doubly so if you get a stereo pair (which still costs less than an Echo Plus). Be careful of introducing the 2018 Echo Dot into a household filled with old ones, though: It succeeds mostly by making its predecessors look bad.