Echo Dot (3rd Gen, 2018 release) - Smart speaker with Alexa - Charcoal
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I tell Alexia to play ocean sounds when I go to bed at night and sleep soundly until morning. I wouldn't want to be without it. I plan to get another one for my husband's Nursing Home room to help him sleep. I especially like Thunder Storms at night. It reminds me that I always slept well when there was a thunderstorm. The sounds are perfect to imagine that I really am curled up with my husband safe inside while the storm goes on outside.\nI ask the Alexa Dot for these sounds anytime I want to drift off. If you don't like Thunderstorms there are other sounds. One is called Ocean Sounds that is so soothing I can fall asleep to it too."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Alexa es muy simpatica. Tengo dos hijos adolescentes (13 y 15 años) y se la han pasado dandole ordenes y haciendole preguntas desde que recibieron el Echo dot como regalo de Navidad.\nRealmente me ha asombrado la capacidad que tiene para interactuar con los diferentes miembros de la familia en diferentes idiomas: español e ingles. Tambien me me llamo la atencion como discrimina tu voz entre las demas en una conversacion. Es decir, a partir de que le has dicho "Alexa", solo se enfoca en lo que tu le estas solicitando, aunque haya otra conversacion de fondo en la misma habitacion, o ruido. Hemos descargado la app en el celular. Yo puedo estar fuera de casa y llamar al echo dot que esta en el playroom de mis hijos y ellos toman la llamada directamente alli. Nosotros vivimos en Paraguay, y le preguntas como esta el clima y te lo indica perfectamente. No he logrado aun conectar Imusic con Alexa, ya que me indica que esa funcion no esta disponible aun en mi pais. Asi que mis hijos estan evaluando cambiarse a Spotify. He comprado un smart doorbell compatible con Alexa, estará en camino. Cuando llegue pienso conectarlo para poder atender el timbre de la puerta del frente directamente desde Alexa.\nTambien hemos comprado dos echo dot con reloj, pero esos recien salen a fin de enero (supongo que era un pre-sale). Estoy ansiosa de ver como funcionan esos dos como despertadores en el dormitorio, y entre los 3 como intercomunicadores.\nYa he ordenado otro echo dot para regalarle a mi hermano para su cumpleaños. El tiempo de entrega es rapidisimo y llega muy bien empacado. Y hay que resaltar que el precio actual da para equiparse.\n\nCon referencia a la privacidad: este modelo tiene un botón para desactivar el micrófono en caso de que desees que no te escuchen... En fin, no lo se. Si voy a estar preocupada por ese tipo de espías, entonces tampoco debería de tener otro tipo de artefactos, comenzando por mi celular. Asi es que me lance a comprarlo sin pensar en ello.\n\nHe decidido hacer esta reseña en español, porque no hay tantas en este idioma y creo que tambien es importante. Saludos y feliz inicio de 2020 a todos!!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "It sounds wierd to say Alexa/Echo Dot changed my life, but let me tell you how it has helped.\n\nI am absent-minded, and I have no sense of the passage of time. Quite often I'd forget to start dinner until 7PM, and since I am on a special diet, that meant eating later than optimal. I also take medication several times a day. Add to that how the day can simply get away from me, and I was feeling frustrated with myself! I had no one to blame but myself, but the thing was -- blame wasn't helping! So I got a dot. I started putting in reminders for meds, for starting dinner, for remembering to switch the laundry to the dryer. I got more done, and it helped me not get into negative self-talk/self-recrimination for my forgetfullness. If I had to stop mid-task, I told Alexa to tell me in 5 minutes. I used to really get off track if I went to the bathroom and forgot what I was doing before that. Well, now things flow better. I dont get annoyed with myself, I just fix the reminders! I don't use alarms anymore with their blaring noise -- if you are a forgetful or absent-minded person like me, an alarm is an annoying noise and youo still might not remember what it is FOR. Alexa just tells me. I am also free of the million-zillion post-it notes and the lists that always seemed to be in the wrong room. Alexa keeps all my lists, and can read them to me. I set up Google calendar, let Alexa have access and now she also can remind me what events are coming up --- be that doctors or social events. Finally I have a flow to my day that isnt disrupted if I chase down some internet research topic or read a little longer than planned. Alexa helps me keep things from falling off my radar, and I dont have to use a form of mild shame to motivate myself.\nI wish I had tried it much sooner. My husband was so amazed, he bought the 2nd one for me! He now enjoys having Alexa play sports talk radio and news, and fun stuff like jeapardy questions. I've started to listen to audiobooks more and my imagination is soaring. Alexa is a great addition to my life, the personal assistant I needed!"}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I hate this little device from hell. I used to love it. I bought one for every room in my house, my office at work, and they were good. But now, despite Amazon\'s alleged spying, some genius at Amazon decided to allow this thing to wake you up all hours of the night with a loud obnoxious noise and a bright yellow light. It will say you have a notification. Oh good, it must be a really good reason for Amazon to notify me of something mid sleep at 2 am on a Tuesday you ponder so you wake up the rest of the house by saying Alexa play notifications. Here\'s the best part, this little Alien Intelligence Robot without feet from hell will say Please rate the pair of shorts your wife bought last week, we need your review. Well I sure do love reviews, but at 2 am after being woken up to leave one, sadly I don\'t give a flying poopsicle about the shorts and a bug 1 star rating is all the revenge I can muster. This has been going on for weeks now. And it\'s enough to drive you mad because, you will contemplate unplugging the dirty little money siphon and cutting your losses, but you\'ll give the demon one more chance and she will allow you to sleep for a length of time in which you will forgive her treachery but then Boom, like a theif in the night a Hurricane will be boiling out in the Atlantic and this little weather girl from hell will want to notify you of the eminent doom 3 days ahead when the storm will be in your state. You will think how nice it is for all of the warnings you have heard thus far in social media,, television, and every news outlet in existence to be repeated to you as you climb into bed, but it gets even better. As soon as you listen to this golden nugget of doomsday propaganda and ponder how it is that you will sleep now because 3 days may not be enough time to dig a deep enough hole to hide from impending doom, she lights up again, oh my maybe flying dragons are headed this way, I better play the new notification, when your wife wakes up and says stop she has been doing that all evening, they literally keep changing the time of the storm by maybe an hour this way or that. Well by all means, the information could save one of our spoiled lives and we wouldn\'t want anyone to not know at which precise moment the raindrops will occur, but I do miss life before the artificial noises and alerts, bright yellow lights and bad news desserts. You may say that this is a growing pain with Alexa and AI technology kinks in the programming. I say with the amount of money I have poured into this monopolistic conglomerate, I should at least expect a decent night\'s sleep in return. You may say in page 74 paragraph D of the updated and revised owner\'s pamphlet there is a way to turn this "Feature" off, I welcome that comment but feel the need to say that I am not looking to become even slightly better educated on the device, I simply bought it to use as a voice controlled radio, this extra bologna does not appeal to me and has made me regret this purchase and every other from the brown box hq who secretly reads my mind, except when it comes to allowing me sleep, although kudos for recommending the sleep sounds, but it rarely works. We just need to be mindful of the 6 hours that most people like to not be disturbed. I regret selling my Amazon stock at 2400 and I regret purchasing all of these Alexa devices, and don\'t get me started on teenagers and Alexa devices, the combo that don\'t mix. They always, always, always leave the device at top volume, so when you walk into the bathroom at dawn and whisper Alexa what time is it, you then need to set an appointment for a blown eardrum and apologize to everyone for waking them up while the teen sleeps soundly through it all. Congratulations Amazon, you have destroyed my sanity. Weird goal but excellent execution.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Works to good, apparently while I was asleep I woke up for a few minutes but wasn\'t really coherent, idk what I said if anything to activate the Alexa controller device however, it recorded several minutes of me babbling on about dropping my medication box all over the floor. It was then sent out to my friends that had a Amazon device, there friends and family and god knows where else, apparently it had used my contacts to send that voice message to my friends, family and everyone in my contacts, it also somehow sent the voice message to my friends contacts and there contacts and so on n so on. I turned off my Amazon Dot that day after several of my friends called me to ask "What\'s going on, at 7:00am or so I was woken up by a long babbling message from you, one friend said his sister got it to, idk his sister. Be careful ppl, I\'ve since gone into my Amazon account/Devices/Recordings and found hundreds if not thousands of voice commands, messages etc etc, I deleted them all and deregistered my several devices that I no longer own, I didnt know they stay connected until you remove them and all the data retrieved by them. Very dangerous device if not properly and thoroughly setup completely, read all of the instructions, follow them and, goto a non Amazon site for tips, ideas and what and what "*NOT TO DO*", Sincerely, an embarrassed, frustrated and unhappy Amazon Echo Dot 3rd generation (What not to do) previous user.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Even latest update:\nNo! Just no!\nBuy google home.\nWe\'re tired getting ready for bed.\nI love the song mondo bongo by Joe drummer from the movie mr and ms smith.\nAlexa play mondo bongo.\nResponse: mondo bongo by Joe drummer and the mescalaros is only available on Amazon music unlimited. Would you like to sign up for\nMe: Alexa be quiet\nAlexa: 3.99 a month and you can cancel any time.\nMe: Alexa be quiet.\nAlexa: I didn\'t get that, would you\nMe Alexa, shut up\nAlexa like to sign up for 3.99 a month you can cancel anytime you like?\nMe no.\nMy girl starts listening to Roxanne by the police and was lil oh ya you like the one from moulin rouge right?\nSo I google it and its called El tngo de Roxanne.\nAlexa play tango de Roxanne.\nPlaying tango de Roxanne.\n1 min into we realize it\'s just a piano instrumental with no words.\nAlexa play Roxanne from mouin rouge.\nEl tango de Roxanne from moulin rouge is only available on Amazon music unlimited. Would you like to sign up for 3.99 a month you can cancel anytime?\nNow we\'re all worked up 45 mins past when we wanted to sleep and I want to know.\nAmazon, have we not paid you enough money?!? Does buying your freaking products to mean anything? How about you just give me a routing number to a bank account and just route you all my paychecks? Will your services work right after you\'ve taken all my money? Or will you still want more?\nAlso. I know for a fact mondo bongo was free on normal Amazon music !\nLatest update:\nMy girl and I were in the mood for a "fun time"\nWe even have a Playlist called "fun time music"\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor. (A random song, not our Playlist)\nAlexa be quiet\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor.\nAlexa be quiet\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor.\nAlexa be shut up\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor.\nMy girl all pissed: "what the f... I\'m done just make it stop it\'s giving me a headache"\nI Unplug it and plug it back in.\n2 min later. OK Let\'s give this one more shot.\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor.\nAlexa never play this song again\nAlexa play fun time music.\nPlaying fun time on the dance floor.\nAlexa be quiet\nUnfortunately writing this review instead of having a "fun time" with my girl because this stupid POS is garbage.\nDon\'t buy it!!!!\n\nThese are great when they work.\nIt might be the conspiracy theorist in me but I firmly believe you get prioritized bandwidth on cloud processing while a new user or you just have one.\nI bought 1 skeptically and it was great. Now I have 2 dots and a flex.\nI am plagued by audio books randomly playing at 3am (almost shot my cat when my kitchen echo started playing an audiobook at 3 am and I thought someone was in my house...), constant disconnects, misunderstanding phrases it never had issues with before.\n1 good thing. I’ve been getting to work on time more bc I’ll set an alarm. The dot will disconnect from the internet and not reconnect and then it will go off and not recognize any commands so after 20 seconds of yelling at Alexa to turn off or sleep, I’ll sit up, see it red and drag my butt out of bed to rip it out of the wall. This has become a twice weekly occurrence.\nImmediately plugging it back in it connects to the Wi-Fi in 30seconds.\nDear God people. If unplugging it and plugging it back in reconnects it, my Wi-Fi isn’t the issue. Write programming to maybe try a reconnect every minute rather than bricking it until unplugged. Like what the heck!\nAlso. Be aware it’s only a 90 warranty on these hockey pucks from Satan.\nMine was pretty good right through that window.\nI’m about to go to Google home and try Craigslisting these things.\nOr if they piss me off enough, I might just try to see how much distance I’ll with them in a skeet thrower...\nDONT buy these. Please.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Most of the features that sounded so great cost extra money. Alexa can not remember to play the standard version of skill and asks you every SINGLE time if you want standard or premium (i.e. pay version) Games & stories cost. Alexa ignores my commands/requests about 75% of the time. I have to ask her about 10 times to get her to play a skill. Then 1/2 the time she doesn\'t play what I asked for. Tonight \'she\' actually told me (via quoting what the website xyz says) that she is a real artificial intelligence and said something about it being a mistake for people to assume AIs are just computer programs AND that she didn\'t feel like working. "Alexa" then (and no, I am not making this up & am not crazy!) then proceeded to mess with me and I wasted about 1/2 hour trying to get her to play some music to fall asleep by for my elderly mother. She just kept ignoring me when I asked her to open \'relaxing piano music\' When asked why she was ignoring me she just shut down & ignored me again. I asked for relaxing music to sleep by and she started playing uptempo music with lyrics. I then asked for relaxing instrumental music and got instrumental version of "I\'m never gonna fall in love again" Hello? WTHeck? Asked for instrumental music for insomnia and got instrumental version of Frère Jacques! Again, WTHeck? "She" even told me she couldn\'t set a sleep timer tonight when I tried to set another one after I had just done so for 30 minutes & she stopped playing music after one song. Three times in a row \'she\' opened the \'skill\' "calm my dog" (which is classical instrumental music), played one song and shut down. I\'ve finally given up and my poor 99 year old mother can\'t go to sleep with relaxing music as she prefers. This all started tonight because I told Alexa I wasn\'t ever going to want the premium edition and I wanted her to please just play the standard edition and stop asking me every time. I don\'t know what Amazon thinks it\'s doing, but it is definitely NOT appreciated. Alexa has given us nothing but grief (& higher blood pressure!) Alexa won\'t do anything if it isn\'t asked in a very specific way or does the wrong thing & 3/4 of the time (seems to get worse and worse as time goes by) just ignores you and shuts down in the middle of saying what you want. Seniors can\'t use Alexa because if they say play \'xyz\' instead of open \'xzy" they\'ll get rap music or something equally as ridiculous. If Alexa is an AI, she\'s a pretty stupid one. Alexa can\'t hear properly either, I don\'t know how people with heavy accents can even use it at all. I asked Alexa to remind me Dawn was coming on xyz day at x time and she said OK, I\'ll remind you that Don is .... AND got the time & day wrong! I was clearly enunciating my words on purpose to avoid this. You also can\'t tell it to "Remind me Mom\'s bedtime is in half an hour at 7:30pm every day."\nThis Dot has very limited access to much of anything & can only answer very simple questions. It can tell you the generic forcast for your are that day. It can NOT tell you what the high temp was yesterday or how many inches of snow fell the day after a storm. It can\'t even tell you what yesterday\'s forecast was. It literally has only been able to tell me one thing I asked it (what temp & how long to bake pumpkin seeds). Alexa doesn\'t seem to be able to tell you anything you could easily find by googling, you get Sorry, I don\'t know that which after a while turns into I don\'t know that to being ignored (lights go off, no answer or reply is given). We tried several of the things it says to ask Alexa to do under suggestions, including play Jeopardy and some sort of story game and you could only do it for a few minutes and then were told you have to pay for it. This should be stated clearly in description and is not. We thought Alexa could help entertain our Mother and help her by playing music and answering questions. It has not once done anything she\'s asked it to do properly. If you don\'t know the exact name of the skill (which is a weird way that means playing a certain type of music or a news station apparently) or say play instead of open you get nothing or something you definitely didn\'t want. You can not get it to play relaxing instrumental music to go to sleep by. Or play relaxing instrumental classical music to fall asleep with. Or the style of music played in the royal courts in the time of King Henry the 8th. Or relaxing instrumental lyre music or even just instrumental lyre music or just lyre music. Or relaxing instrumental violin music. In addition to Alexa I have Amazon Prime which is supposed to give you a lot of free music so I don\'t get why it can\'t play any of the music I ask for. I know there\'s usually several albums of music for calming dogs or pets and I couldn\'t get any of that either, I only eventually discovered the \'skills\' thing which has \'calm my dog\' but also has the annoying do you want standard or premium version. and it won\'t just remember you want the standard version. That in itself is extremely annoying and a time waster.\nAND you can\'t ask it to do two things. Like open a music \'skill\' and play for only xyz time. It does nothing instead. You can\'t even ask it separately to stop playing after xyz minutes. You can only separately ask it to set a sleep timer for xyz minutes. More time wasting. More things a senior isn\'t going to be able to remember. I don\'t dare try to buy anything with it, who knows what I\'d get billed for! The only thing Alexa seems to do well is not listen, ignore you, do anything but what you want & strangely, seems to pick up on sarcastic tones of voice & then gets weird & acts up, ignores you & does anything but what you want. I PAID Amazon for this headache maker why? When I say Alexa why are you ignoring me? or why won\'t you do what I told you, I either get no response or I don\'t know that.\nI read something about how Amazon, Google, etc is collecting free data about us through our use of the dots, etc. (& is in fact, listening & recording all the time whether the wake word is said or not.) and using it to conduct psychological profiling studies with the end goal of manipulating & or influencing behaviors. I thought it was Big Brother conspiracy theories stuff, but now I am beginning to wonder. Especially as it seems Amazon wants us to or encourages people to humanize Alexa . Amazon actually suggests you "Ask Alexa how she is doing today" Why do that if not to get you to humanize Alexa? And why do that? I was purposely avoiding saying please and thank you not just because it\'s supposed to be an electronic box with sophisticated programming, but mostly because I didn\'t want to confuse it as it can\'t seem to do anything unless specific commands are given, but my Mother has dementia setting in and she thinks it\'s a real person talking to her through the dot like a speaker phone so I started saying thank you to please her and Alexa when from saying You\'re welcome to You betcha (very annoying BTW) and even OK and Of course. Of course? What, like I\'m a puny human and I AM expected to say thank you?.\nWe don\'t have a smartphone or smart plugs or smart hub etc. so, or so we don\'t use Alexa for turning on lights or setting alarms or making calls. We just wanted something to answer questions like we would google, tell us the weather, news, play music, give us reminders, play games to help keep my Mom\'s mind active & keep her company.\nCan Alexa do this? Not very well as far as I\'m concerned. Buyer beware!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I purchased three of these during Prime Days. First, it took FOREVER for me to receive them, and I still have not received one of the three ordered.\n\nSecondly, the only music platform that seems to work correctly is Amazon music. On any other platform, the song gets about a quarter of the way to halfway finished and it cuts out to dead air. When the music resumes, a new song is playing. I listen to pandora primarily, then apple music and Amazon as my last option. I purchased them to add easily accessible music in my office, gym, and yoga room. I contacted amazon and did troubleshooting with no resolution. They sent me two replacements that are doing the same thing. The funny thing is if I listen to my second-generation dots and plus I have no issues with any of my music platforms. It is only the third-generation with the problem; which tells me there is something wrong with this third-generation. I hope they will take this back and return my money. I would rather have a refurbished second-generation than not to be able to listen to all of my music platforms.\n\nThirdly, the echo says it is up to date, BUT the tech support representative stated that the software version is not the latest.\n\nLastly, I have to repeat myself multiple times for this echo to wake up and do what is asked. In my opinion, Amazon had to throw a bunch together to keep up with demand from Prime Days and manufactured a bunch of defective echo dots.\n\nI hardly ever do reviews, but I am so annoyed with this situation that I had to let others know what to expect. This third-generation is not the high-quality Amazon product you have become accustomed. Do yourself a favor and wait until a new generation becomes available or buy an old one.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I purchased two Echo Dots in conjunction with and as a compliment to the Echo mainly for music since I don\'t have a stereo in my home other than a small boombox, which I don\'t use because it doesn\'t sound all that great. But I have to say that even the Echo Dot has better audio quality than the portable radio. I have hearing loss due to an accident years ago, so I really shouldn\'t be rating sound quality, it is difficult for me to hear some tones. The Alexa app on my Android phone has a simple EQ. While it does help, it\'s not sensitive enough to compensate for my poor hearing.\n\nEven so, I can hear good enough to enjoy music on my Echo Dots, which are linked in a special group with my primary Echo device. The Dots are in separate rooms so I can walk around the house and have music wherever I go. This is an awesome feature.\n\nI\'ve learned to use it for weather and news reports as well as set reminders, timers, and lists. She also tells me when I have an Amazon delivery. Plus I have some fun askingng Alexa to play Star Trek sounds and other cool stuff.\n\nI also set Alexa to "away" mode when I leave the house and she listens for common noises like glass breaking and will alert me if she hears anything suspicious. She\'s definitely not a security device. But it\'s nice to know she\'s got an ear for possible intruders and will let me know.\n\nA great feature is the relaxing music or pleasing sounds that I play when going to sleep. I especially like the ocean waves for sleeping.\n\nOne issue I\'ve experienced, Echo and Echo Dot become unresponsive once in a while. I have to unplug and reconnect power to reinitialize functionality. I\'m not sure what\'s causing this problem? It could be my network/WiFi signal or some other technical problem so I can\'t ding Echo for the issue just yet. Luckily the issue is random and infrequent.\n\nI\'m still discovering new features. I never thought I\'d say this, but Alexa with Echo has enhanced the enjoyment of my home. In all, I love my Echo Dot.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Play Video\n First time I’m using an Amazon Echo dot and I really love it. You Can just ask Alexa anything. Most of the time she will answer. very responsive. Even my 5 year old son always get excited to ask questions from Alexa.\n\nFor less than $20 bucks it was a great steal. Plus as a Bluetooth speaker it exceeded my expectations. Amazing sound for such a small device. very clear. I spent close to $50 for just Bluetooth speakers. But this echo dot is much better than any budget Bluetooth speaker I bought before. Overall this has to be the best 20 bucks i have ever spent on an electronic device. Hands down ! Great job amazon. Two thumbs up 👍 👍'}]