Echo Chambers

So, over the last couple of months, my blog has seen quite a few posts about Amazon products... if you ignore that embarrassing break over the summer months that is. That’s simply because bit by bit, I’ve found their products to actually be quite useful in my everyday life. Granted, not all of them are equally useful all the time, but all in all, they’ve really been useful in completing my smart home setup here at home.

Anyway, for this article, I’m going quite a ways back, all the way back to January 1st of this year, to be precise. On that day, I published a long-planned article about my experience in setting up a smart home in my apartment here in Cork. At the time, I already had a pretty extensive setup, and on the whole, not that much has changed since then. I’ve added another speaker, while still waiting for a decent offer for a robot vacuum to roll around. There has been one major change however, and that is the arrival and integration of two more Amazon Echo speakers. The speakers in question are two Echo Dot models, one Echo Dot with an integrated LED clock display, and one “plain” Echo Dot.

Amazon Echo Dot

This Echo Dot is the latest, and final, addition to my Alexa setup at home. This is still one of the 3rd Generation Echo Dots, one of the new spherical models would have never fit. 

The Echo Dot with Clock (That's apparently the official name) is an ideal alarm clock for the night stand, much better than the old Echo Show 5.

Echo Dot are the smallest full smart speakers in Amazon’s line-up. Measuring 43x99x99 millimetres, they’re definitely compact, especially since the ones that I got predate Amazon’s ridiculous latest generation Echo Dot spheres. At roughly 300 grams, they are surprisingly heavy though, something I wasn’t really expecting. By the way, the measurements are identical for both the regular Echo Dot and the Echo Dot with LED display. The sides of the device are covered in a textile mesh, while the top and the bottom are made of durable plastic, with the top containing the major control elements as well as the Light Ring that indicates the device status. That being said, there really aren’t that many control elements, just two volume buttons, a mute button that disables the microphone and a multifunction button that can be programmed through the Alexa app.

Amazon Alexa

The key here however is Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant. While I was a bit sceptical when I first started using her after getting my Echo Show 5, I’ve since grown to really appreciate what such a digital assistant can do, particularly when combined with a smart home setup like I have. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s only the presence of such a digital assistant that makes a smart home really work. This is all the more true in the admittedly weird times we live in these days, with most of us, me included, working from home. Whether it’s telling Alexa to stop any music playback when the boss calls, giving me a morning briefing with the major news, weather and calendar items on my agenda before work, or asking her to turn off the lights after turning in for the night, it is these seemingly minor items that Alexa takes off your hands. Now granted, all of these things are possible without a digital assistant, and I myself have done without one for quite some time, but ever since the lockdown started, I’ve really grown to appreciate having all of this just a voice command away.

Do you think I have enough screens in my home office? My Echo Show 5 (bottom centre) in its current location.

Now how does Echo Dot fit into this? Well, for a long time, I’d used my Echo Show 5 as an overpowered alarm clock in the bedroom. Once I started working from home, I realised that having an Echo on my desk would be more useful than having one in my bedroom. After originally thinking of simply relocating my Show to the office, I decided to take advantage of a discount on Amazon, and ended up with the Show on my desk and an Echo Dot with clock on my night stand. Then, just a few weeks ago, another steep discount over on Amazon saw the setup completed with a second Echo Dot taking up its assigned station in the Living Room. I now have Alexa available in all major rooms in my place, which really elevates the system to a whole other level of usability. While using mobile based digital assistants such as Siri is certainly an option, and one that I’ve used pretty extensively as well, it is just a lot more convenient when you can just ask a question without reaching for your smartphone, etc. 

For me personally, this is what truly makes a smart home, the ability to trigger actions without having to reach for a device. Now granted, I’m not all in on that, all of my rooms still have all their physical switches in place, so a failure of the smart home won’t leave me in the dark. Also, as mentioned in my original article from back in the day in January, I draw the line at smart locks or other “active” elements that could potentially cause issues by malfunctioning. In general though, these last few months of working from home have clearly demonstrated just how much convenience such a smart home system actually adds. Given the fact that the COVID-19 situation is likely to get a whole lot worse over the next few months, having this extra convenience is likely to make the situation somewhat easier to bear.