Comparing the Best Alexa Speakers
Honorable Mentions
While I wouldn’t call these smart speakers my absolute favorites from Amazon, they have some excellent qualities that make them stand out among the vast lineup of Echo models.
The Echo Studio (2nd Gen) is the best Alexa speaker for sound quality. This is the second version of the Echo Studio to be our audiophile pick. The current version is a similar size to the old Echo (4th gen), but the musical power on this speaker is almost ridiculous. It filled my entire second floor’s long great room with music, and I didn’t even need to reach the highest level of volume to pull it off. Honestly, I’m almost afraid to use it at full blast. Not only was it loud, but clear and delivered a nice amount of blast, beautifully playing soft tones of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and the piano riffs of “Dark Blue” by Jack’s Mannequin with its three 1.5-inch drivers, plus a 3.75-inch woofer. The harmonizing of “What Is This Feeling?” by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo sounded beautiful, too. If you’re looking for big sound in an Alexa box, this is it. It’s a similar size to the Apple HomePod, but I like the sound much better and it’s cheaper, too. You’ll also get a built-in smart home hub, spatial audio and Dolby Atmos, tap controls like the Echo Dot Max, and early access to Alexa+ right away.
The Echo Spot (2nd Gen) is the best Alexa speaker for bedside tables. The Echo Spot returned in 2024 after a few years of discontinuation, and it’s a great little bedside companion thanks to its half-circle screen that displays the time, plus any alarms you have set are also visible under the main time. You can customize the clock with a couple of different color and face options, and the screen dims nicely when the lights are out to a gentle red that’s easy to read without lighting up the room. I like asking for alarms set to my latest playlist or some lo-fi jams, and it’s easy to set that up with a voice request. Unlike the Echo Shows, it doesn’t have a distracting, constantly moving slideshow that would be annoying for the bedroom, nor does it display ads or have a built-in camera. (Nobody wants a rogue camera in their bedroom.) It does not have fantastic sound, but it’s plenty loud for an alarm or casual listening while you get dressed in the morning.
The Echo Dot Kids (5th Gen) is the best Alexa speaker for kids. Do your kids really need their own Alexa speaker? That’s up to you. This special edition of the Echo Dot is nearly identical to the fifth-gen Dot above, but it has easy-to-use parental controls that allow you to set time limits, filter explicit content, and review activity. The owl- or dragon-themed sphere comes with a year of Amazon Kids+, which includes thousands of Audible books and other special games and features. After that, you’ll be charged $3 per month. Alexa can help your kids spell, play their favorite music, or—via another speaker in your house—remind them of dinner time.
More Alexa (and Alexa-Compatible) Speakers
There are a lot of Echo devices out there, and some third-party speakers that are Amazon Alexa–compatible. Here’s every Alexa smart speaker we’ve tried and what we thought of it.
Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) With Clock for $60: I like this version of the older Echo Dot that adds an LED clock to the front of the speaker, and was thrilled to see it in stock again last year. The LED clock can also display information like the weather when you ask Alexa questions. It’s once again temporarily out of stock as of this writing, and has had spotty availability for the past year or so. Still, it’s a good find when it’s available.
Amazon Echo Hub for $180: The Amazon Echo Hub is similar to an Echo Show, but without the speaker. Instead it’s a thin device that feels a bit like a tablet, designed to be mounted on the wall (or placed on a separately purchased stand, which is how I used it) and used to control your smart home devices. It’s a great choice for anyone who wants something focused on smart home control only. You can still ask Alexa questions and even play music, but the thin speakers aren’t worth playing music from. But you can tell your Echo Hub to play music on a different set of speakers, and even set up default speakers to work with it. It’s a great companion device if you already have a smart home setup.
Amazon Echo Pop for $40: The Echo Pop is a perfectly fine little speaker, and the cutest one in Amazon’s lineup. Does it have great sound? No. It’s fine enough for background tunes or if you’re limited to a dorm room, but you’ll get much better sound for a similar size from the Echo Dot (but you’ll pay a little more, and you won’t get as cute of colors)!
Amazon Echo Show 5 (3rd Gen) for $90: This smart display is another just-fine option, but it’s too small to be a great display, and the included camera makes it a no for a bedside table; better to go with the above Echo Spot or an Echo Dot.
Amazon Echo Show 8 (4th Gen) for $180: I usually love an Echo Show 8, but this model didn’t have the same sound quality as the older model. If you’re going to get one of Amazon’s new displays, you’re better off getting the Echo Show 11 ($220) for the same experience with a slightly larger screen (while it’s a 3-inch difference, it doesn’t feel that big) and better sound.
Amazon Echo Show 15 (2nd Gen) for $300: This smart display is a good display, but it clearly wants to double as a TV and isn’t very good at it yet. I’m hoping we see better TV-related performance in the future to make it worth adding to a kitchen or office. It does a great job with widgets, though, thanks to the massive 15.6-inch screen. There’s also the larger Echo Show 21 ($400), which is essentially the same thing but larger.
JBL Authentics 200 for $360: This JBL smart speaker supports both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, letting you switch between them for different tasks without changing your preference in the app. That makes this speaker particularly appealing for folks with a sprawling collection of smart products from both.
Sonos Era 100 for $189: If you’re looking for a speaker that can talk to Alexa but isn’t necessarily made by Amazon, the Sonos Era 100 is a great option. We just wish we liked the Sonos app better. You can catch our entire guide to the Sonos ecosystem here.
What’s Alexa+?
Photograph: Nena Farrell
Amazon has rolled out the new-and-improved Amazon Alexa, named Alexa+, which is built on generative AI and promises a more powerful assistant that can handle more conversational topics and requests. It’s available for a free 30-day trial; after that, you either pay a $20 monthly fee or become a Prime member. Being a Prime member is the better deal, likely by design. Neither my colleagues nor I have been impressed enough by Alexa+ to say it’s worth paying for on its own. I do like the updated, more conversational voice, and Alexa+ did a good job answering all kinds of questions quickly and thoughtfully. Check out our early access hands-on for everything I thought while testing.
Alexa+ has brought some changes, even for those not using it. It now requires that all voice recordings be sent to Amazon for processing, which wasn’t required before. Amazon has changed its features to support this, and now all recordings with regular Alexa go to Amazon, too. There used to be a “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” privacy feature you could select to have voice requests processed locally, but it was discontinued on March 28, 2025, per an email Amazon sent to current users.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: wired.com
