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The Best Amazon Echo Smart Speakers Credit: Reviewed / Sarah Kovac

The Best Amazon Echo Smart Speakers of 2024

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The Best Amazon Echo Smart Speakers Credit: Reviewed / Sarah Kovac

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Editor's Choice Product image of Amazon Echo (4th Gen)
Best Overall

Amazon Echo (4th Gen)

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Amazon's 4th-gen Echo has a built-in smart home hub, a temperature sensor, upgraded speakers, and a sleek new design. Read More

Pros

  • Fantastic smarts
  • Supports Matter and Zigbee
  • Clear, relatively full sound

Cons

  • Distorts at top volume
2
Product image of Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)

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The 5th generation Echo Dot is the latest smart speaker from Amazon's Echo lineup, with improved bass and functionality. Read More

Pros

  • Good sound quality for size
  • Works as an eero Wi-Fi extender

Cons

  • Temperature sensor is spotty
3
Product image of Amazon Echo Studio

Amazon Echo Studio

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When it comes to sound quality, the Studio is the best midrange smart speaker on the market. Read More

Pros

  • Exceptional sound
  • Dolby Atmos
  • Controls Zigbee and Matter-compatible devices

Cons

  • Large
4
Product image of Amazon Echo Pop (2023)

Amazon Echo Pop (2023)

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The Amazon Echo Pop is an Alexa smart speaker that comes in a compact size with small colors with decent sound for small spaces. Read More

Pros

  • Good value size and sound
  • Fun design
  • Matter controller and built-in eero support

Cons

  • No temperature sensors
  • Power cord is white
5
Product image of Amazon Echo Dot Kids (5th Gen)

Amazon Echo Dot Kids (5th Gen)

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The Echo Dot Kids offers kid-friendly Alexa features. It has privacy controls and good sound quality. It also doubles as an eero Wi-Fi extender. Read More

Pros

  • Fun designs
  • Includes 1-year Amazon Kids+ subscription
  • Good parental controls

Cons

  • No option to limit volume
  • Best Overall Amazon Echo (4th Gen)
  • Other Amazon Echo Speakers We Tested
  • How We Tested
  • Echo Speakers and Privacy
  • What’s The Difference Between Alexa and Echo?
  • More Articles You Might Enjoy

No two Amazon Echo smart speakers are the same—each has its own unique range of capabilities. We examined each speaker in the line for its unique characteristics, sound quality, and responsiveness to help you decide which one is best for your home.

In doing so, the Echo (4th gen) (available at Amazon for $99.99) sits at the top of our rankings of best Amazon Echo devices. This smart speaker has the most universal appeal and would be perfect in any room of the house. But there are multiple models available, each with something notable to offer.

Amazon Echo fourth-generation smart speaker sits on a table.
Credit: Reviewed / Sarah Kovac

The indicator light turns blue when Alexa is listening.

Best Overall
Amazon Echo (4th Gen)

The fourth-gen Echo smart speaker is our pick for the best value. The modern smart speaker takes on a minimal aesthetic as a fabric-covered orb, offering up sleek looks for your smart home. It offers rich sound for a small speaker and acts as a Zigbee and Matter hub for certain smart home devices. Alexa is responsive and quick. It also has a built-in temperature sensor to help deploy home automation like controlling a smart thermostat.

The sound on the 4th-gen Echo is certainly respectable for a speaker that’s not much larger than a baseball, and it can be used solo, as a stereo pair, or for multi-room music.

Overall, this tiny smart speaker packs a big punch for smart homes, with built-in sensors, support for Zigbee and Matter, and quick voice assistant responses. It comes in several colors and you can frequently find it on sale via Amazon.

Read our full review of the Amazon Echo (4th gen)

Pros

  • Fantastic smarts

  • Supports Matter and Zigbee

  • Clear, relatively full sound

Cons

  • Distorts at top volume

$99.99 from Amazon

$99.99 from Best Buy

$99.99 from Target

$99.99 from Home Depot

Other Amazon Echo Speakers We Tested

Product image of Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)
Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)

The 5th-generation Amazon Echo Dot received a significant boost when it comes to sound. It produces more bass, and displays more proficiency in reproducing tracks that lean heavily into those lower frequencies than the previous generation. To be clear, the Dot won’t rattle windows or shake picture frames off their hooks. But for a speaker that weighs less than 11 ounces, the Dot does a surprisingly good job of bringing the bass.

The new Echo Dot now doubles as a Wi-Fi extender for eero Mesh Wi-Fi systems, and is now reportedly capable of adding up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your network and handling speeds of up to 100 Mbps. For eero owners, the Dot represents a useful, 2-for-1 gadget that can set timers and tell you the right way to pronounce “biopic” while providing a handy boost to your network.

Aside from the extender skills, the Dot’s new accelerometer offers up new tap gesture controls. Simply tap the top of the speaker to pause or play music, snooze alarms, or even end communications through the Dot.

Unfortunately, not all of the Dot’s new features hit the mark. The speaker’s new ambient temperature sensor, while intriguing, measured about 9°F to 10°F colder than the real temperature of the space. Still, that’s a rather minor issue compared to the rest of the lineup of solid, noteworthy features packed into Amazon’s latest Alexa-enabled smart speaker. Add in the bump in bass and audio quality overall, and the fifth generation Echo Dot has plenty of perks to once again be one of the most valuable smart speakers around.

The fifth-gen Echo Dot also comes in additional models like the Echo Dot with Clock and the Echo Dot Kids Edition.

Read our full review of the Echo Dot (5th gen)

Pros

  • Good sound quality for size

  • Works as an eero Wi-Fi extender

Cons

  • Temperature sensor is spotty

$49.99 from Amazon

$49.99 from Best Buy

$49.99 from Target

$49.99 from Home Depot
Product image of Amazon Echo Studio
Amazon Echo Studio

If you’re looking for the best sound quality in the Echo lineup, the Echo Studio is absolutely the best pick. It's also a great choice for smart homes because, like the 4th-gen Echo, it has a built-in Zigbee hub.

This speaker is considerably larger than other Echo speakers, but the additional size allows for deeper bass, better clarity, and immersive sound. The Studio is also unique in this space as it is designed to deliver 3D sound, thanks to its Dolby Atmos compatibility. It even features an upward-firing driver that bounces sound off your ceiling to better immerse you in the audio.

Usually, we think of surround sound in reference to movies. But there is a burgeoning movement in music to use 3D-audio technology like that in the Echo Studio to deliver sound that seems to come from everywhere–even above you. At present it's limited to a small list of artists and streaming services, such as Amazon Music Unlimited and Tidal, but it’s becoming more widespread.

Regardless of whether or not you use this speaker to play 3D music, the sound it delivers will be satisfying, and impressively full for a speaker of its size.

Pros

  • Exceptional sound

  • Dolby Atmos

  • Controls Zigbee and Matter-compatible devices

Cons

  • Large

$199.99 from Amazon

$199.99 from Best Buy

$199.99 from Target

$214.03 from Home Depot
Product image of Amazon Echo Pop (2023)
Amazon Echo Pop

The Amazon Echo Pop is the smallest and most affordable Echo smart speaker yet. It supports Matter-enabled devices and works as an eero Wi-Fi extender. The Echo Pop delivers decent sound quality for a speaker that isn't much larger than my morning cup of espresso. The audio is crisp, clear, and just fine for listening to in the background.

However, when the volume is all the way up, the Echo Pop struggles a bit with that clear crisp audio, and it sounds a bit tinny, especially on heavy rock songs, but for small spaces like dorm rooms, this is a great pick.

It does not have an audio jack on the back like the Echo Dot does—it only has one port for power meant for use with the included 15W power cord. It comes in fun colors like Lavender and Midnight, as well as standard Echo device colors Charcoal and Glacier White.

The Echo Pop isn't the smart home powerhouse that the Echo Dot is. The Pop's lack of motion and temperature sensors is one of the biggest differences between the two features.

For less than $40, the bright and cheerful Echo Pop offers quick and easy access to Alexa in one compact size, making it a great smart speaker for small spaces.

Read our full review of the Amazon Echo Pop

Pros

  • Good value size and sound

  • Fun design

  • Matter controller and built-in eero support

Cons

  • No temperature sensors

  • Power cord is white

$39.99 from Amazon

$39.99 from Best Buy

$39.99 from Target

$39.99 from Home Depot
Product image of Amazon Echo Dot Kids (5th Gen)
Amazon Echo Dot Kids (5th Gen)

The Echo Dot Kids (5th gen) sounds just like the Echo Dot (5th gen) in terms of quality. While the two smart speakers also share other similarities, like temperature sensors and acting as an eero Wi-Fi extender, the kids version has some noticeable differences that make it a great choice for little ones. First, the design is kid-forward, with adorable options for a Dragon or Owl.

It also comes with one year of Amazon Kids+, which is a digital subscription service by Amazon intended for children ages three to 12. This grants access to Audible books, games, and educational Alexa skills.

With this smart speaker, Alexa gives kid-appropriate responses and also filters explicit song lyrics. Parents can manage the Kids Echo Dot smart speaker in the dashboard of the Alexa app for iOS and Android. It is also possible to pause the speaker, set daily time limits, and manage contacts. Parents can also add content purchased on Amazon directly to the Echo Dot Kids (5th gen) speaker like books.

One downside to the speaker is that we could not set volume limitations on the speaker. Despite its small size, the speaker does get fairly loud, so this would be a nice feature to have.

Like other Echo speakers, there is a mic mute button on the top of the speaker to protect your child's privacy. The base of the speaker also illuminates in red when the mic mute button is enabled, offering a visual clue that the speaker is not listening.

Of note, this Echo speaker comes with a two-year warranty that includes a free replacement if it breaks.

Pros

  • Fun designs

  • Includes 1-year Amazon Kids+ subscription

  • Good parental controls

Cons

  • No option to limit volume

$59.99 from Amazon

$59.99 from Best Buy

$59.99 from Target

$59.99 from Home Depot

How We Tested

The Testers

Hi there, I'm Rachel Murphy, Reviewed's home editor, and I’ve been covering smart home for several years now. My work in this article is built upon the original work and testing of Sarah Kovac, Reviewed’s accessibility editor.

The Tests

Because every Echo speaker has its own strengths and features, our testing couldn't be standardized across each device. Instead, we used each Echo for several weeks before deciding which one is best for which use cases.

Echo Speakers and Privacy

Privacy might seem like a thing of the past. Everywhere you go, there's some computer watching or listening. But, in your own home, you can do a few things to protect yourself, even from naturally invasive smart home devices.

You can stop your Echo speaker from listening for (and possibly mishearing) your wake word by turning off your mic via the mute button on the top of the device. Or, turn on audible alerts within Settings in the Alexa app to know when your Echo is listening beyond just the indicator light.

You can opt-out of having your voice recordings included in Amazon’s review process by going to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Your Alexa Data, then toggling off the setting that says Use Voice Recordings to Improve Amazon Services.

In these privacy settings, you can also delete Alexa voice recordings, which are accessible to anyone you share the app with. You can even set up auto-deletion every three or 18 months.

What’s The Difference Between Alexa and Echo?

Alexa is Amazon’s voice assistant. It can respond to voice commands, and it performs a wide variety of functions to help you throughout your day. Alexa can help you manage smart home devices like lights and thermostats. It can also take notes and give you calendar reminders, make purchases online, and more.

In order to use Alexa, you need Alexa-enabled devices or the Alexa app on a compatible smartphone or tablet. There are a host of smart appliances that have Alexa built in, but you can also pick up Echo devices to bring Alexa into your home. That includes smart speakers featured here, and the Amazon Echo Show, which can make video calls and stream movies and TV.

Alexa is the main way you control Echo products. You can use it to also display photos across devices, pull up streaming content, play music in a multi-room audio setup, and more.

Meet the testers

Sarah Kovac

Sarah Kovac

Editor, Accessibility

@thesarahkovac

Sarah Kovac is an award-winning author and accessibility editor for Reviewed. Previously, she worked with a multitude of outlets such as Wirecutter, TIME, PCMag, Prevention, The Atlantic, Reviews.com, CNN, GOOD, Upworthy, Mom.me, and SheKnows.

See all of Sarah Kovac's reviews
Rachel Murphy

Rachel Murphy

Editor, Home

@rachel_murphy

Rachel Murphy is Reviewed's home editor. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a freelance writer for publications like Insider and Mashable, and as an associate editorial producer for Good Morning America. Aside from smart home tech, her interests include food, travel, parenting, and home renovation. You can usually find her sipping on coffee at any time of the day.

See all of Rachel Murphy's reviews
Nick Woodard

Nick Woodard

Contributor

@nwoodard25

Nick Woodard is a tech journalist specializing in all things related to home theater and A/V. His background includes a solid foundation as a sports writer for multiple daily newspapers, and he enjoys hiking and mountain biking in his spare time.

See all of Nick Woodard's reviews

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