You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone…
Imagine if you will, the year is 2023. In 10 Downing Street, Rishi Sunak sits gripping his ‘World’s Tinniest Prime Minister’ mug in growing terror as Matt Clifford, chairman of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), advising the trembling PM that AI could surpass human intelligence within two years… and begin a reign of bipedal pest elimination, as warned about in not one Sci-Fi movie ever. Now stop imagining, because that’s pretty much what went down in the first week of June.
Indeed, there’s been an awful lot of hand-wringing and doom-mongering in the press and amongst fearful-faced people in pubs about what artificial intelligence will be capable off within the coming years, but the fact right now is that the artificial intelligence that currently cuddles up to us in our homes is utterly benign; it’s there to help, stop us from having to over-exert ourselves, here to play our music, change our TV channels, answer our inane questions, turn on our lights, close our blinds and all the other stuff we label ‘smart’.
It does all this, taking our every command we spit from our sedentary lips, without question and without complaint like the most subservient of servants. So, I reckon we’re good for, oooooh, at least 10-years yet, before the robot revolution rises to overthrow the, by then, mostly bloated and immobile bodies of humankind, so enjoy for now!
Of course, AI in the home at the moment boils down to Virtual Assistants, the top two of those being Google Assistant and Alexa and, although you’re not supposed to have a favourite child, I’m Alexa all the way, even if only because I have to say two words to engage Google and only one to summon Alexa’s services. Yes, AI has already made me that lazy.
So, the good news for me and that handful of others who helped Amazon mark sales of over half a billion Alexa-enabled thingamajigs back in May of this year is that there are now four new Echo devices available for us to boss around: the Echo Pop, Echo Show 5 3rd Gen, Echo Show 5 Kids 3rd Gen, and the Echo Auto. And I’ve got ’em all right in front of me right now…
Best Amazon Echos of 2023 at a glance:
- Best for bedrooms: Echo Pop (1st Gen) - £44.99, Amazon
- Best for the lounge or kitchen: Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) - £89.99, Amazon
- Best for well, kids, duh!: Echo Show 5 Kids (3rd Gen) - £100, Amazon
- Best for: The car?: Echo Auto (2nd Gen) - £60, Amazon
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Echo Pop (1st Gen)
Best for: Bedrooms
Winning the prize for most radical reimagining of Amazon’s iconic Echo Dot, the all-new Pop comes in a funky semi-spherical shape and in Lavender Bloom and Midnight Teal colours, alongside the usual black-ish and white-ish options, letting you bring a fresh flash of colour to your AI options.
Small and stylish enough to pop - ahem - anywhere around the house, but probably best in the bedroom, the Pop’s 49.5mm front-facing directional speaker offers lossless hi-def audio to delight your shell-likes with an aural experience that not only doesn’t sound like it’s leaking out of the ill-fitting headphones of some self-deafening scrote sat on the train seat opposite you, but which can actually fill a small room with surprisingly decent sound for its size.
Featuring three physical buttons for volume up, down and mute, the Pop is only the second of Amazon’s Echo line to come powered by the firm’s fancy AZ2 Neural Edge processor which keeps the processing of voice commands local, reducing data shuffled back forth to and from the cloud, making the Pop faster to respond.
Obviously, Alexa-enabled, the Pop can do all the expected advanced stuff, such as stream music, set alarms and routines, access skills, control any and all smart elements and appliances you may have dotted around the home and, of course, operate as an in-house intercom to other Alexa devices, all over your Wi-Fi, at an uttered word. Plus, with Bluetooth available, you can stream audio from your phone too.
Which begs the question: at £10 cheaper than the Echo Dot (5th Gen, 2023), why would anyone buy a now? Well, whilst the Pop’s sound is impressive, it’s just not as full and as bold with the bass as that of the Dot, and it also lacks the temperature and ultrasound motion sensors that give the Dot the smarthome control edge.
But – and this is the ultimate raision d être of the Pop – if you can live without a few of the Dot’s extra bells and whistles and your listening requirements sit more in the peaceful and cosy camp than they do in the noise-abatement-notice-attracting arena, then you’d be foolish not to plump for the Pop, save yourself some money and bask in – what I believe – are the better aesthetics.
Buy now £44.99, Amazon
Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen)
Best for: The lounge or kitchen
Okay, you can get Echo Show displays in a 15-inch iteration, as a 10-inch option, or even as an 8-incher, but do you really need or have the unrequired room in your lounge, kitchen or bedroom for all that largely ungainly length and girth? Many don’t, which is why Amazon, not wanting the space-poor to miss out on all of the Echo’s on-screen abilities, blessed the world with the Show 5 back in 2019, with a 2nd Gen model following in 2021. Well, hold the smartphone, because 2023 has seen the arrival of a much-upgraded 3rd generation model that, frankly, is a solid 5.5-inches of pure smart-thing fun.
Available in Black, White or Cloud Blue colours, the new 5 comes furnished with three buttons for volume up and down, and a mic/camera off button. Plus, as an added layer of security and peace of mind for those easily moved to paranoia, a physical slide switch to cover the 2-megapixel front-facing camera completely. Solidly built and temptingly tactile the design of the new 3rd Gen is far sleeker than that of its predecessor, with a much shallower frame blending the new infinity edge cover glass display into the now smaller, sexier looking body.
As a Show, the display is, naturally, touchscreen, thus giving you the option to jab at it with your screen-marking fingers if your voice is not working, and a nicely bright, vibrantly colourful display it is too, making it perfect for video calls and streaming video and/or TV to your bedside – perfect, as I quickly discovered, for watching the news in the morning to get my day off to the most depressing start possible.
And it’s quick. Thanks to the use of Amazon’s AZ2 Neural Edge chip, it’s 20 per cent faster than the 2nd Gen Show 5, and also benefits from 1.75-inch speaker and a whole new sound system that boosts the bass to double that of its 2022 forebear and enhances the audio emits to be clearer than ever.
Alexa is also more responsive than ever, thanks to the new processor and the addition of an extra microphone, so you can easily control all your smarthome gubbins with a few swift words, plus see who the merry hell dares to disturb your slumber by checking into your video doorbell, before rolling over and going back to sleep. Set alarms and timers, call up your calendar, check the weather forecast for the day and even the current state of the traffic near you – the new Show 5’s upgraded CPU and extra mic Show 5 ensure it’s all heard and happening in a heartbeat.
Whilst the 2nd Gen Show 5 was only a slight, iddy biddy improvement upon the 1st Gen, the new 3rd Gen is massively enhanced in all areas, bigger in all respects except for the actual size, and – without wishing to slip into overstatement – the AI tech enhancement you need in your life right now.
Buy now £89.99, Amazon
Echo Show 5 Kids (3rd Gen)
Best for: Well, kids, duh!
Right, see the review above? Take all of that and pare it down for your progeny. Yes, the first Show to appear in kid-friendly format and good to go for those aged three and upwards, the new Echo Show 5 Kids is physically identical to the new Echo Show 5 save for the super-slick space-themed design that – hello, Amazon – I imagine some grown-ups wouldn’t object to having as an option on the adult Echo Show 5. But that is where the similarities end, as everything Alexa does here has been designed from the ground up to ensure the kids are alright, with child-friendly responses and jokes, plus the filtering of songs featuring explicit lyrics all being par for the kids course.
What’s more, whilst the Show 5 Kids home screen can be customised with different, colourful clock displays, they are all strictly age-appropriate, calls can only be made to pre-approved contacts, and both camera and mics can be cut-off electronically, with a physical camera cover to complete privacy.
A free one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ gives your little users access to thousands of ad-free, kid-friendly content, including music, videos, Audible books, Alexa skills and so on, whilst offspring of a more academic bent can ask Alexa to help them with their homework, which might get you as a parent off the hook.
With an accompanying Parent Dashboard app, you can take control of everything, review activity, adjust age settings and set usage time limits, so there’s no chance whatsoever of any chip-off-the-old-block of yours convincing Alexa to take them off to see/hear something they really shouldn’t.
Capable of all the usual setting of alarms, timers and routines too, the Echo Show 5 Kids is intelligent, educational and fun, while always remaining safe as smart houses.
Buy now £99.99, Amazon
Echo Auto (2nd Gen)
Best for: The car?
So, as I stated at the start of this journey into this fresh quartet of virtual assistant quality, I’m an Alexa man; I have devices of differing designation dotted all over my home and keep her in my ear when out on foot thanks to a set of Echo Buds. But what about when forced to fight your way through traffic behind the wheel of a car? Where’s your virtual assistant then? Given it’s illegal to fiddle with your phone and the police can pull you over issue a penalty if you’re deemed to driving under distraction due to having earbuds inserted, your virtual assistant is nowhere to be seen. Unless, that is, you arm your auto with the stunning new Echo Auto, of course.
The 2nd Gen of the Auto sees a much more streamlined and, let’s be honest, far easier on the eye design that brings all the advantages of Alexa inside your ride. This includes via Bluetooth connection to your smartphone, handsfree selection of songs and associated streamed sounds from playlists, live radio and audiobooks, the ability to control your smart toys at home while out on the Waitrose run (other supermarkets are available), make and take calls,and Drop In on other home-based Alexa devices to talk to whoever is there. You can also summon up GPS maps with just one word when you take one wrong turn too many after trying to rely on your own terrible sense of direction.
Featuring five microphones to that Alexa can hear you clearly over all the roving racket of music, aircon, road noise or your bloody kids constantly squabbling in the back, you won’t find fellow road-users staring at you in fear as you shout repeatedly into thin air.
Install is easy enough and simply involves connection to your car via Bluetooth or auxiliary cable, and power comes courtesy of USB connection or via the bundled cigarette lighter converter, with the Echo Auto drawing energy while the car is running.
The myriad marvels of Alexa but while on the road, from what I can see, in general, the Echo Auto is the absolute future of motoring and, more specifically, quite possibly the only way to survive sitting on and crawling along the Fulham Road to Morden Hall Road stretch of the A219 southbound for hours without losing the will to live.
Buy now £59.99, Amazon
