Like its predecessor, the new Spot is a combination smart speaker and alarm clock, but it does away with the camera that no one liked putting in their bedroom. It also now borrows the design of the Echo Pop, which amazon says should offer better sound quality. And being an Echo speaker, it of course supports Alexa voice commands to set your alarm for the morning, check the weather forecast, or have the news read to you. And if having a microphone in your bedroom still sounds creepy to you, the top of the Spot has a dedicated button to turn it off.
Practicality and functionality aside, keep in mind that any smart alarm clock becomes useless if the power goes out, as it has no battery backup.
By the way, here's a quick note on some internals (a disclosure, so to speak): we don't often cover product deals. The edge We don’t do any reviews unless we have personal experience with them. Since the Echo Spot has just come out on the market, I reached out to our resident smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who has begun testing the new Spot for her upcoming review. Jen’s first impressions are mostly positive, and she thinks the new Spot should be a great option at $45, but possibly not so much at its full price of $80. Stay tuned for the full review with her final assessment. For now, if you’re a Prime subscriber and don’t mind being an early adopter, this deal could be worth it.