Amazon’s Echo Pop might convince you to ditch the Dot
Entry-level smart speaker is prepped for AI upgrades
Amazon’s never-ending quest to get one of its smart speakers into every room of every house continues with the all-new Echo Pop. This Alexa-powered squalkbox looks like what would happen if you sent an Echo Dot to the guillotine, with a spherical rear end and a flat front that’s almost entirely speaker grille.
On sale now for £45/$40, the Echo Pop replaces the old third-gen “hockey puck” Dot as the most affordable Echo offering. It can be had in charcoal, lavender, white and teal colours, or if you’d prefer your tech to be loud and proud rather than soft and subtle, Amazon will sell you a handful of lurid rubberised sleeves to dress it up in. Navy, red, orange, purple, lilac, grey and a glow-in-the-dark neon blue are all up for grabs, for £20 each. No word on US prices for those just yet.
A subtle light strip along the top edge lets you know when Alexa is listening, and it can do all the usual smart speaker jobs: play music, control your smart home gadgets, give weather updates, set timers and alarms, make to-do lists and answer all the pointless questions you can’t be bothered to search for using your phone.
It has the same Amazon AZ2 Neural Edge processor as the Echo Show 15, so should be chomping at the bit to answer your every query, and will make better use of the AI additions that will be added to Alexa in the future.
The front-firing speaker has apparently been custom-designed for the chassis so should pack plenty of sonic punch. It’s available to order right now from Amazon.
Amazon is also bringing the latest generation of its Echo Auto hands-free gadget to the UK for the first time. Already on sale in the US, Echo Auto adds voice control to cars that don’t have it built in, using Alexa to do pretty much anything you could do with an Echo at home – but while on the move.
The new version has a slimmer design, five mics that should pick up your chatter over any background noise (including your car’s air conditioning and any currently playing music, as well as outside road nose), and comes with an adhesive mount to make it easier to install. It’s available for £60.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
