One of the most remarkable things about the best smart speakers is their ability to discern what you're saying -- even if music is blaring and even when it's from another speaker altogether. Frequently on sale, it has even more functionality than before, with its temperature sensor, tap functionality and improved sound. Then again, it's subjective if this new placement is actually better for you than the previous generation or not.

But if I say “Alexa, what’s the temperature in this room” it chirps back “Bedroom doesn’t support that”. Only reviews that feature the label "Verified Review" have been checked to ensure that the author actually used or purchased the product. The speaker’s microphones are always listening for the wake word or trigger sounds unless you mute the device using the physical mute button or by telling Alexa to mute. These include running water, a dog barking, an appliance beeping, snoring, a baby crying, and coughing. Certain products that use the Alexa voice assistant, such as the Ring video doorbell, have a separate monthly fee.

Echo Dot + another Echo - Fill your home with music using compatible Echo devices in different rooms.

The weather forecast readout, with the temperature and a little cloud, sun, or rain icon, is more useful and slightly faster than listening to Alexa say the forecast. Eero says each Dot can add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage and support speeds of up to 100Mbps and up to 10 devices.However, the running water sound trigger is a bit sensitive: it would start blasting the music whenever there was any sound in the kitchen. All in all, the Alexa is a nice help in everyday life, you speak to it and it answers all your questions or plays music. New motion sensors in the Echo Dot lead to additional ways of interacting with the speaker beyond using your voice and the few physical buttons on top. It pretty much comes with the same color options as the bigger Echo, except for its deep sea blue shade being slightly darker than the Echo's twilight blue shade.

The Dot joins a family of speakers and smart displays, plus devices from third parties such as Sonos and Yamaha. They can give travel times, weather reports and traffic updates, stream podcasts and online radio channels such as BBC Sounds, play games, answer trivia questions, read bedtime stories and much more. doesn’t sound much different from the previous version, but new motion sensors now let you interact with the speaker with a tap. The onboard ultrasound motion sensor, which is also in the fourth-gen Dot, is handy for turning lights on when you walk into the room.Alexa has a lot of third-party “skills” (apps), including those from news publishers such as the Guardian, games such as Escape the Room, utilities such as National Rail app and silly things such Star Trek – Red Alert, so you can pretend you’re on the starship Enterprise. inch front-firing speaker (versus a woofer and tweeters), and "Eero mesh network support so the Echo Dot can serve as a node for your Eero network if you use one," according to our sister site, PCMag.