Echo Dot For your Bedside Table

The Echo Dot aims to bring an Alexa Enabled screen onto your bedside table

13:45 07 January 2018

The war between Google and Amazon continues to rage, with both companies fighting for smart home supremacy and introducing products over the festive period that aim to get the internet giants into your home and on your lips more often. Amazon seems to be winning the battle with recent research showing that that their echo line enjoys three times better sales than Google’s products, something the search giant disputes. What is clear though is that this Showdown is great for us consumers and tech heads who adore smart home devices and love the ease and simplicity they bring to our lives.

 

The internet of things is something which is making our lives more connected both inside and outside of our homes and both Google and Amazon’s smart home tech gives you something to control everything with. It also gives you something to answer burning questions you have, play the music that you want, set reminders, timers, alarms and tell you about your day. They are like little assistants and they really make a huge difference to the way we do everyday tasks. 

 

While Google have worked hard to keep their product line trim and slim with only three products in total: the home, the mini and the max; Amazon have gambled on making their line as big and varied as possible. With their sales figures dwarfing Google’s it seems that gamble has worked out for them. If you are feeling as lucky as Amazon these live dealer roulette games are a good place to test you luck. Live casino games are much better than ones with AI dealers and are far more interactive and interesting to play, make sure to check them out, you can even ask Alexa or Google Home for some tips.

 

 

Amazon have their regular Echo, the Echo Show which has a screen, the Echo Dot which is their smaller version and even the Echo Plus which has a built in smart hub, its amazing for controlling all of your IOT gadgets and keeping everything running smoothly with your home automation tech. Perhaps the most interesting product in the Alexa Line is the Echo Show owing to the fact it has a beautiful 7 inch touchscreen display to go along with its Alexa skills. You can ask it to play videos, call friends and to show you things on its screen. It allows you to interact even more with your virtual assistant and gives you a new dimension for interaction. 

 

The only real issues with it are its the price, and in some ways its size. Starting at the rather steep price of $149.99 it is not the kind of thing you can just pick up on a whim just to try out what having a smart assistant is like. What made the Echo Dot such a success for Amazon was the fact that, at only $50, people who were on the fence about Alexa could try it out without worrying too much about the price. 

 

Amazon have decided to take that logic and apply it to the Show, in order to drag people in they have released a smaller version of the Show. The Show’s 7 inch screen made it great to watch video on but it also meant you had to make quite a big space to place it in and have a real think about where its place should be. That is where the new Echo Dot comes in, it has all of the smart assistant chops of it's far bigger brother as well as its screen but it has a very little footprint making it perfect for placing anywhere near to a plug socket.

 

It is ideal for a bedside table with a real futuristic alarm clock vibe, it is the 21st century version of a clock radio and will be brilliant for setting alarms, giving the news to you in the morning and even playing soothing music as you sleep. At $130 it is also a fair bit cheaper than the Show and will likely drop even further in price once it has been on the market for a little while. Its screen is only 2.5 inches making it not exactly ideal for watching feature length content but for a quick news bulletin or a trailer for a movie it is a fantastic option. If you are looking for a bedside companion it is perfect.