The analogue bell-ringing alarm clock has seen digital replacements come and go over the years, but now another is returning, as Amazon revives the Echo Spot.
As long-running as Amazon’s Echo smart speaker range is, some of its gadgets can feel a little long in the tooth. The big Echo Show 10 was last updated over three years in 2021, and hasn’t seen a change, while smaller models have popped up here and there, too.
Three years is a while, sure, but what about models that popped up in Australia six years ago.
Back in 2018, Amazon unveiled the Echo Spot, a compact circular smart display and speaker made for the bedside, and since then, it has largely disappeared. An Echo Dot largely replaced the idea, offering an LED clock with support for other notifications in the spherical design, while the Echo Spot disappeared.
It’s back, however, as Amazon readies the new Echo Spot for release this week, with improvements in practically every place. There’s a 2.83 inch screen for clock, album art in music, and notifications, but there’s no camera like there is on Echo Show models.
The 2024 Echo Spot comes with a newly designed 1.73 inch speaker with two microphones, so that you can talk to it and it can talk back, playing music as it does. Support for WiFi, Bluetooth, and Matter smart home technology is all build in, with the size pretty much geared for the bed size and the speaker coming in several colours, too.
“Customers care about the way they wake up in the morning and go to bed at night and the all-new Echo Spot will transform the way they start and end their day,” said Patrick Walker, Country Manager for Amazon Devices in Australia and New Zealand.
“Thanks to customisable clock faces, personalised designs, new alarm sounds and colourful visual animations, Echo Spot is the best smart alarm clock designed for any bedside table,” he said.
It’s worth noting that Amazon’s Echo Spot isn’t the only smart speaker alarm clock replacement we’ve seen over the years. Lenovo has previously offered a Google-based model, while Google’s own current Nest Hub 2nd-gen is sort of like a larger bedside equivalent, albeit with a sleep tracker built in (which also coincidentally hasn’t been updated in some time).
Amazon’s newly updated 2024 Echo Spot is available now, however, priced at $149 locally.
