Amazon Discontinues This Echo Smart Speaker: Here's Why

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posted on 4 months ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Amazon has a wide range of Echo smart speakers powered by Alexa assistant but the new models are being replaced with the old ones.

Amazon has decided to discontinue the 5th Gen Echo Dot Smart Speaker, the one with a dot-matrix clock which the company had introduced in 2022. As per a report by The Verge, after current supplies of the 5th Gen Echo Dot speakers are depleted, this model will no longer be available for customers. “You can check the product page for the latest device availability, but once the inventory of this generation Echo Dot with Clock is sold through it will not be restocked,” an Amazon spokesperson told the outlet.

Amazon has discontinued the device in favour of a more expensive model, the Echo Spot which was launched earlier this month. However, the company has still not revealed the reason behind the discontinuation of the Echo Dot (5th Gen).

Talking about the newly launched Echo Spot, it has a semi-spherical design with a front-firing speaker beneath a half-circle tinted glass-covered 2.83-inch touchscreen. Apart from that, it has a customizable display that lets users select from six distinct colourways: orange, violet, magenta, lime, turquoise and blue.

It comes with built-in access to Alexa, Amazon’s Voice AI, that can perform a range of operations, including managing compatible smart home devices, receiving audio drop-ins from other Alexa devices and showing notifications from compatible smart doorbells.

The company has also added 10 different response animations that can be triggered with specific prompts such as “Alexa, hello”, “Alexa, goodnight” and “Alexa, how are you”. Additionally, it has physical buttons to turn on/off the microphone and adjust the volume controls. Amazon claims that the Echo Spot comes with a better display and sound quality.

Users can skip songs by simply double-tapping the screen. The device will show the temperature, along with an illustration—like a sun, rain cloud or snowflake on the screen when users ask it for weather reports. According to the company, the Echo Spot includes many layers of security controls, such as a mic-off switch on the option to view and delete voice recordings and more.