Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) Smart Speaker Review: Fun and useful

Price: Rs 5,499

The Amazon Echo Dot speakers have always been a fun addition to a smart home ecosystem. I say fun because, though the speaker was meant to be a foundation stone for a smart home, many use it as a device where they could converse with Alexa and get answers to certain questions or play music of their choice. Like most things tech, the Echo Dot has evolved over the years and is now in its 5th generation.

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What new upgrades does it bring along this time? Let’s find out. Alexa! Tell me more about the Echo Dot (5th Gen) smart speaker. Well, if you ask her that question, she will tell you a line or two about it. But don’t worry, we will tell you a lot more.

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): Build and design
The new Echo Dot looks exactly like its predecessor with the same spherical design and size. We now have a new darker shade of blue and it looks good. The lower part of the speaker has a matte plastic shell, while the upper half is covered with a piece of fabric. The speaker is smartly designed so that you only get to see the nicer fabric part, while the bare plastic stays on the backside. The light ring at the bottom is uber cool, and it uses different colours to indicate different states of readiness. When it turns blue, the device is ready.

You get four buttons at the top – the action button, volume up, volume down and a toggle to switch the microphone on and off to alleviate your privacy concerns. One thing missing here from the previous generation is a 3.5 mm headphone jack; we will talk about it a little later. For the record, the speaker weighs a shade over 300 grams, and even more when you add the power adapter, in case you want to carry it around.

A lot of people think of the Echo Dot as a portable wireless speaker, and it may look like one too in photos, but it is not. It needs to be powered all the time and also needs an active WiFi connection to function. The necessary 15W power adapter is bundled in the package.

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): Key features
Amazon claims that this is the best-sounding Echo Dot yet with 2X the bass as compared to the 4th Gen model. We didn’t have a previous generation unit at hand to do the comparison. But what is a definite improvement here is the addition of two new sensors. The new Echo Dot has an ultrasound motion detection sensor and an ambient temperature sensor that significantly adds to its utility value and smartness.

If you have a smart AC in the house, the latter can be used to automatically switch it on when the room temperature rises above the specified temperature, and switch it off when it’s sufficiently cool. The former switches the lights on when you enter the room or when it detects significant motion. This smart speaker also has an accelerometer that enables tap gestures. Simply put, you can tap anywhere on the top of the speaker to pause or resume the music, end a call or snooze the alarm. The last bit is so much better than searching for the snooze button with those sleepy eyes in the morning.

In addition to that, most of the features of the previous Echo Dots are available here. Powered by the AZ2 Neural Edge processor, this smart speaker can accomplish a wide variety of tasks like controlling smart appliances in the house using voice commands – turning the fans and lights on and off, setting the AC temperature etc. And of course, you have Alexa here to chat with, inquire about the weather and the news and play music.

You can ask Alexa to play music from most of the popular streaming services like Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, Apple Music, JioSaavn etc. The 5th Gen Echo Dot is fitted with a 1.73-inch front-facing speaker and comes with Bluetooth and dual-band WiFi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. From microphone control to viewing and deleting your voice recordings, Amazon states that there are multiple layers of privacy protection built into this Echo device.

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): Performance
For starters, this is not just a plug-and-play device. It needs to be configured from the Alexa app which is available on Android and iOS both. The basic setup is as easy as following some simple instructions. Once the device is synced with your Amazon account and connected to WiFi, you are good to go. For temperature and motion sensors, you need to configure them further. The same goes for getting it to speak to your other compatible smart devices in the house.

Post that, you can simply bring up Alexa by saying her name and assigning her tasks. The microphone is sensitive enough and you don’t need to yell from across the room. Alexa has been getting smarter with every passing month, yet keep your expectations in check, and do not assign her a Mission Impossible. She will politely tell you she can’t do it. But when it comes to inquiring about the weather or live cricket scores, she is smart enough. The odd pronunciations of certain cricketer names can lead to unexpected humour.

Though I did not have a smart AC or a smart plug to test the temperature sensor, I did have a compatible smart bulb to try the motion sensing feature, and it worked as promised. When I walked into the room, it switched on the bulb, but I don’t think it could switch it off on its own after I left. One good part is it does not detect minor motions like shifting in a chair or hand gestures, and the motion sensing is triggered only with significant movement, and that too only once in 30 minutes.

Playing different genres of music on this smart speaker is quite smooth. Alexa does a surprisingly good job of identifying and playing requests for Bollywood or regional language content too. Oh, she can understand and speak Hindi as well, though you will need to change the main language from the app to Hindi. Last but not least, time to talk about the sound quality; it is a speaker after all.

The sound quality is pretty good for a speaker this size. 2X bass claims aside, there is decent warmth in the sound but don’t expect thumping bass. There is ample clarity in the vocals and the overall sound is pleasant as long as you don’t play it at peak loudness. It is loud enough in the 55 per cent to 70 per cent volume range for a mid-sized room, and a bit too soft under 50 per cent. While some may want to place it next to the bed for some soft, nighttime music, in other scenarios, the best results are obtained when the listener is at least 9 to 10 feet away from the speaker.

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): Drawbacks
There aren’t any major shortcomings here, but there are a couple of minor ones. As I touched upon earlier, Amazon has inexplicably removed the 3.5 mm headphone jack that was present in the 4th gen device, and with it the possibility of connecting it to a better speaker system. So imagine the smartness of this speaker and the sound quality of your home theatre or soundbar for instance, that combination is out of the window.

Secondly, the touch sensitivity is a little iffy. At times it doesn’t recognise a tap and on other occasions, there are unintentional taps when you try to move the speaker. On that topic, a gentle touch generally does not work here as it is an accelerometer-based system. So a healthy tap would be a better idea. And lastly, the sound output feels harsh and sibilant close to peak volume. Also, the jump in loudness from 50 to 55 per cent is quite steep; something that a firmware update should be able to fix.

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen): Price and Verdict
The Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) smart speaker is priced at Rs 5,499 in India with a one-year warranty. The pricing is fair and one can expect it to be more attractive in the upcoming Prime Day sale and other festive sales to follow. Barring the absence of a headphone jack, this is indeed the smartest Echo Dot to date, thanks to the addition of a motion and temperature sensor. That not just makes it fun but also a useful product in more ways than one.

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