Fourth-gen Echo, smarter than your average speaker
Amazon Echo fourth-generation smart speaker.
Amazons fourth-generation Echo looks completely different to all the others that came before it. The all-new design reminds me of a half-moon where you see a bright side and a dark side. Looks aside, the new Echo comes with some of the extra features which were exclusive to the Echo Plus including the built-in Zigbee smart home hub hardware as well as improved audio.
The new-look Echo is spherical with a slice cut out for the rubber base which also has a bolt receptacle for mounting it on a stand. The top half uses a fabric material which is 100% recycled and the bottom half is recycled plastic. Where the two materials meet is at an angle so that when viewed from the front, all you see is the fabric. On the top are four buttons for volume up and down as well as a mic mute and an Alexa button.
The base has the usual colour ring of light that will display red when you mute the mic or blue when you ask Alexa a question. It also indicates the volume level in white.
On the base is the usual power port and 3.5mm audio out jack for connecting the Echo to a larger speaker or audio system.
The speaker includes a 3-inch woofer and dual .8-inch tweeters which are the same as those found in the previous Echo, but now there are two tweeters. There’s support for Dolby processing that delivers stereo sound with clear highs, dynamic-mids, and deep bass.
The Zigbee hub means you won’t need a bridge for compatible smart home devices like Philips smart bulbs, Belkin WeMo or Hive Active although you will lose some functionality if you replace these brands respective dedicated hubs.
The Echo also features Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and makes it easy to connect to other Bluetooth speakers — just say, “Alexa, connect to my Bluetooth speaker”.
Alexa is at the heart of the Echo, and it’s mighty powerful. It does all the basics like setting alarms, timers and checking the weather or providing you with an estimate of the time it will take you to get to work. There are a plethora of skills to enable and it is compatible with hundreds of smart devices. One of the most powerful features is Routines where you say a command and Alexa will set off a string of events one after the other. Say “Alexa, good morning” and she can be set up to turn on lights, give you the weather update and play the news headlines.
Audio performance is an improvement over the previous generation and impressive considering its size. However, don’t expect to shake the room or produce heavy bass. What it does well is reproducing clean and clear audio that’s easy to listen. The Echo is excellent for listening radio or podcasts with natural-sounding vocal reproduction. Taking into account the size and price of the Echo one can only be impressed by how much sound it’s able to push out.
One gripe I’ve always had with Alexa is that it only supports audio streaming from Amazon Music, Spotify, and TuneIn.
Overall, the new Echo is a worthy upgrade for those with a gen 2 Echo and is especially attractive if you can take advantage of the integrated Zigbee hub.
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