A fine nightstand companion, but there’s another Echo you should consider instead

Looking for a smart speaker to put by your bedside? Smart idea; they’re great for things like alarms, audiobooks, white noise and weather reports. I like Amazon’s Echo Pop for this purpose, mostly because I prefer its design to that of the better-known, orb-like Echo Dot — but the latter is a solid pick as well, especially if you choose the Echo Dot with Clock. Now comes something of a hybrid; the Echo Spot looks like the Pop, but with a screen occupying roughly the top half of the front. That affords at-a-glance time, weather, song titles and more. Before you carve out a spot for the Spot, however, you’ll want to consider a few of its limitations. Here’s my Amazon Echo Spot review.

Amazon Echo Spot: Setup and design

This is actually Amazon’s second Echo Spot; the first-generation model debuted way back in 2017 and was discontinued a couple years later. It was a bit smaller, with a screen that occupied the entirety of the front side and a camera integrated just above it.

This model dispenses with the camera (something that really wasn’t necessary in a fancy alarm clock) and cuts the screen nearly in half, the better to make room for its front-facing speaker.

The Spot comes in white, blue or black. It has a rounded body with three buttons up top: volume up, volume down and microphone-mute. If you’re wondering why there’s no snooze button, it’s because the whole device is a snooze button: When an alarm goes off, just give a light tap anywhere along the top.

Setup is a breeze, especially if you already have the Alexa app on your phone. You can either scan the QR code that appears onscreen when you first plug in the device or just open that app and wait for it to detect the Spot. I went with the latter option; one or two taps later, it was added to my Wi-Fi network and ready to go.

Beyond that, the only real configuration requirement is choosing from six stylish clock faces and six available accent colors. (Alas, only two of the faces show any weather data, and only one includes the date.)

Easy as all this was for this experienced Echo user, I commend Amazon for including a brief but detailed setup guide to ensure that tech novices enjoy smooth sailing as well.

Amazon Echo Spot: Features and performance

Anyone familiar with Amazon’s Echo lineup or the Alexa hands-free voice assistant knows full well what the Echo Spot can do. It’s a smart speaker, capable of responding to all manner of questions and commands. You can ask it for a news briefing or weather report, tell it to play music or a podcast, request a lamp be turned on or off (with the requisite compatible smart bulb or outlet, of course) and much, much more.

I find a lot of these tools invaluable; it’s now second nature to me to ask Alexa for the outside temperature or to knock the air conditioning down a few degrees. When I’m in the kitchen, I ask her to play a podcast or my “Meal-prep” playlist from Spotify. Here’s hoping that if Amazon does indeed start charging for more advanced Alexa features, which has been rumored for months, it leaves these core capabilities free.

The Spot’s 2.8-inch screen is small but sharp, easy enough to read from across the room — though it’s harder to see from an angle. That means if you want to be able to see it clearly while actually lying in bed, you’ll want to point it directly at you — but then you might not be able to see it as well when you’re up and about.

You can manually adjust the brightness setting or let an ambient-light sensor adjust it for you. I was concerned it wouldn’t get dim enough at night — I like my bedroom dark — and unfortunately that was the case. Thankfully, there’s a Night Mode setting that makes the display much dimmer; it can activate automatically or at scheduled times.

This isn’t a full-on smart screen like the Echo Show 5. The Spot can display only the smattering of things I mentioned previously: time, weather, song titles, etc. It can’t show the feed from, say, your doorbell camera, nor can it play videos. Granted, I don’t need to watch Netflix on a screen this tiny, but I wouldn’t mind being able to glance at a security camera feed to know if there’s something outside needing my attention.

Like the Echo Dot, the Spot has a built-in motion sensor you can configure to activate various Alexa routines. For example, it can be set to turn on a light or adjust the thermostat when it detects you walking into the room. That’s pretty cool.

However, one Dot feature that’s missing here is built-in Eero Wi-Fi; the Spot can’t double as a Wi-Fi range extender for an existing Eero home network setup. I like that capability a lot, but if you don’t have an Eero system, obviously it’s no great loss.

Between the Echo Dot and Echo Pop, Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to produce decent sound from a small device, and the Spot is no different. Whether you’re listening to a meditation at bedtime or some music while getting dressed, the speaker delivers clear, crisp audio that can get plenty loud without distortion.

Amazon Echo Spot: We have to talk about the price

The Echo Spot has a list price of $80, which seems high when you consider that the Echo Show 5 — which has a larger screen and speaker and a built-in camera to boot — costs only $10 more. Granted, the Spot’s introductory price of $45 seems a lot more reasonable, and Amazon routinely discounts all Echo products, so it’s good bet you’ll see similar sale pricing in the future.

That said, the Echo Show 5 is, at this writing, discounted to just $50. It’s a much more capable device, maybe overkill for a nightstand but almost certainly the smarter buy between the two.

Yes, the Spot is cuter and takes up a bit less space, but if you want a nightstand smart speaker that also includes a screen, I can think of only one reason to choose the Spot over the Echo Show 5: The latter can get a little annoying with ads (mostly for Amazon products and services). Even after I toggle off everything but time and weather, they creep back into the mix. The Spot: no ads.